Just watched Ep.1 of KR08.

[KamenRider]

The Good: I thought the improvements to KITT's look worked rather well. I like that the scanner sound effect was more pronounced. I don't get the Val Kilmer hate. He's not William Daniels but I think as the voice of *THIS* KITT he works fine. On the transforming/morphing thing you know I don't even care if Viper did that for one simple reason. Viper owes its very existance to Knight Rider not the other way around and on any day of the week Knight Rider is cooler than Viper so the way I see it, it's a cool schtick but on a much better car now. I liked Attack Mode though I do think it should be handled more like a power-up move. A real "oh *?$#, it's on!" kind of thing and not something that's used every time there is a pursuit. I thought Turbo Boost was cool. The dash is still a little plain but more interesting to look at than the pilot version. The new voice-box is good but I'd like just a bit more of a pronounced visual effect for when KITT is speaking. I could tell there was a light that flashed in tone with him speaking but it was barely noticeable.

The Bad: The Knight Rider pit-crew. It wasn't the concept that bothered me as much as the simple fact that as hot as the Asian girl was she and the geeky guy were utterly vapid and annoying. I think the idea that Mike Tracer would need to "die" and he has to exist and operate as the new Michael Knight is a cool idea by itself (and a nice call back to the original) but I'm not sure about the whole Bourne Identity type angle. I'd rather the episode had simply gotten the character in a fix where that was the only way out of it. Having some amnesia/former controlled super-soldier angst just seems like overkill to me. The opening theme I have the same problem with as the pilot. It starts as a rockin version of the classic theme but then just as it's building up veers into something that sounds random and unrelated. It's really disjointed and kills the songs momentum. The dna code thing didn't really make sense to me. I think Mike really needs a supporting cast overall that is slimmed down to only 2-3 more people.

Probably my biggest gripe is that I didn't feel any time spent on Mikes relationship to KITT. This is one of the problems with having the huge pit-crew supporting cast and the Matthew Bourne machinations. Knight Rider has two protags. Michael and KITT. Those two should be the core focus and it should be their interactions and reactions with each other that are the glue which holds the show together.

Overall: I think there are still some improvements to be made but the show isn't neccessarily horrible not is it too late to refine it. If Star Trek TNG and animated Justice League series taught me anything, it's that it can be as long as two seasons before a show really begins to figure out who the hell it is and what to do with it.