Live Discussion Thread - Knight of the Zodiac

[KRAvengerII]

I think the line was in "Trust doesn't rust".

[NeoRanger]

In KOTP, Michael was the only one in danger, KITT was completely unharmed the whole episode. Enforcing the idea of the invincible car.

That's not entirely correct. I distinctly remember Devon scolding Michael about destroying the most fantastic car (or something to that effect) by the end of KOTP. It always stroke me as an odd comment to make.

But yeah, KI3T is waaaay too downplayed as a supercar. If you have a problem with selling a talking car to modern audiences, just sell the super-car aspect. I'd like to have a Mustang that can go one-on-one with an M1.

[PHOENIXZERO]

He said something along the lines of "only you could damage that car" okay that's probably not at all close but it was more of a gag than anything. Then again, KITT then had his "Alpha Circuit" damaged from towing the car of the first (or second if you count Maggie) Babe of the Week in Deadly Maneuvers, which was the first episode after the pilot. But still that wasn't anything like what's happened with the new KITT. KITT was removed from his body in Sole Survivor in season two after the car was hacked with a Commodore 64 but still, at that time KITT still fought back before being taken over and removed from his body. But no real damage where KITT and the Knight2000 were put out of commission for any real amount of time, aside from those few episodes when it meant something.

Heh, that actor that played the hacker bad guy in the pilot is in a Samsung Propel commercial working at a Starbucks-like coffee shop taking an order from Ozzy. Or at least I think that's him...

The thing with the relationship issue is that there's not in some spots it's good as we see it in one episode, then the next, not a whole lot if anything, then we get another one where they seem to be bonding, then the following one again, nothing or very little. They don't communicate like friends or anything like that, just partners, aside from I guess KotLD and Journey Into The End of Knight, okay maybe there are a few other spots also, but I'm half asleep and too tired to bother with remembering more.. Maybe that's just another issue with how the episodes were written and aired but it just seems off, at least to me. Perhaps it also might be just one of those things having to do with having the focus taken away from Mike and KITT so much. Another thing that kind of bugs me is that it was six months between the premiere and whatever events they keep from the pilot, it seems like they should already have bonded and been through some of the things brought up. KITT's "learning" but what did he learn in those first six months? Unless there was a date/memory wipe somewhere in there, I think we would have missed out on some significant development in between the pilot and series premiere.

[kitt34]

Having watched it again, I think my rating was way too high, partially because of how much I disliked last week's episode and the fact that KITT actually did a couple things in this one with the black ice and crashing through a wall. But other than that it was rather "meh". I still liked Billy's side story but not as much as the first time where I wasn't paying so much attention and I do think we could have done without the gratuitous close ups of the bikini girls and various parts of their anatomy, that's just a cheap attempt at distracting viewers. I dunno if it's laziness or if they just don't know how to write anything good without relying on bits of pointless T&A but it's really out of hand and I've for the most part been on the side telling people to "lighten up" but it's beyond that point even for me now.

I'm glad at least that the girl Billy met didn't turn out to be a hooker or a thief, grifter or anything like that, at least as far as we know. Then there was Charles side story that was just terrible and the only reason for it being there was for the annoying as hell and hypocritical Green Week BS that's worse than a bad after school special. Besides that, papa wanted to get laid! I liked Sarah's reaction to it with sticking her fingers in her ears and going "LA LA LA LA" over and over and I wish I would have done the same during the scenes, more so with the "carbon footprint/credit" which I'm sure was promptly sold to Al Gore. At least they didn't shill the wonderful and potentially toxic solar panels (which NBC's parent, GE makes) like they did last year on Life or the other potential toxic hazard, compact florescent lights, also made by GE. But still, the third grade environmental lesson was bad enough, I'd rather watch Captain Planet like I did when I was little if I wanted to be indoctrinated by propaganda and even that show was more subtle about it.

Then there was the in your face and horrible Ford shilling again which has been something I've hated since the backdoor pilot and tonight was no exception with the faux 2010 Mustang and the shiny new Ford Flex which KITT turned into and Billy some how drove off with (apparently no one noticed the scanner either) without anyone batting an eye. Whatever happened to subtlety in "product integration", STOP BASHING IT OVER MY HEAD DAMMIT! Maybe Ford is the one really in control of this show and if that's the case then it's screwed no matter what changes are made. It's really no wonder why Ford is in the toilet with the people they've got running things, including whomever is watching over this show because instead of making people want to buy, well anything, I'm certain they're doing the opposite in trying waaaay too hard to sell their products and it shows.

The leads are supposed to be and should Mike and KITT, not Mike and Sarah, not Mike and Billy, not KITT and Sarah, not Billy and KITT not anyone but Mike and KITT. It's like if Lethal Weapon 5 was going to be made (thankfully those plans fell through) and while Riggs and Murtaugh are supposed to be the main characters you go and dedicate a significant part of the movie, if not more of it on Leo Getz (Joe Pesci), Lee Butters (Chris Rock), Lorna Cole (Rene Russo, heh) and/or Murtaugh's family and their own stories or even not even have Murtaugh and Riggs together through 90% of it and each character is off doing their own thing while they communicate by cell phone. It's like if the Lone Ranger without riding Silver or even Tonto riding Silver instead or how about the Odd Couple, but instead of living together, they're just neighbors or only one of them are in the room at the same time and spend 90% of the episode(s) with other characters. This is nothing against the the actors or the characters they portray but they should be supporting characters while the leads (Mike and KITT) get most of the screen time and while maybe once or twice a season each character gets an episode focused around them, it's still not so much that Mike and KITT take a backseat to that character. You know, actually, I don't mind Sarah being behind the wheel of KITT, BUT this should be an extremely rare occurrence when either KITT for some reason either can't drive himself or for cover purposes.

Like others have said, KITT is nothing more than a glorified prop and you can tell their budget sucks from not just the recycling of footage (let's be fair, the original series did do a lot of this) but the excessive green screen instead of the old towing method (and probably not wanting to spend time getting permits and all that stuff) and lack of real driving action, especially with the "precious" GT500KR and probably Ford mandated lack of doing anything with the dash, the HUD, as much as I like it, is not enough and I hope but doubt that chances as well but I have no hopes of that.

Anyway, this is gone on far too long and has become a rant. So to sum it up...

What I liked:

The beginning of the episode with Mike confronting the Virgo guy.
Billy's paper cut thing was mildly amusing.
The use of Elvis.
As juvenile as it was, Sarah's reaction to Carrie, Zoe and Billy's comments about Charles and his "old friend" with benefits.
Hey! Carrie smiled!
Fiona Gubelmann.
KITT's missing Mike.
Some of Billy's side story with Courtney and her not turning out to be someone of ill repute. Including his revealing that he was in fact a secret government operative.
The Zoe/Billy exchange regarding said girl.
Mildly amused by Leo's inquiring about KITT and if "she" was single.
KITT finally drove through something!


What I didn't like:

The Green Week stuff.
The Ford stuff.
The "party" scene with Ocean's.... I mean Team Zodiac, which looked stupid and I didn't believe for a second that any of those characters would listen to that type of music.
Billy's side story went on maybe a bit too long and did he need a one night stand? Granted it is Vegas......
The total lack of Mike and KITT really doing anything together, the EMP thing and a couple slow driving scenes don't count.
Why didn't Mike have KITT make him a new ID instead of carrying around "Virgo's" with his picture on it? What they did was even more suspicious than the ID with the real guy's picture on it.
The lack of real action.
The pointless T&A from the pool scene and the focusing on it while panning over the girls, close up.
Billy just driving out of the casino with the "Win this Car" car without anyone paying attention... Though maybe security was busy with that whole robbery issue to notice.
Oh and the night vision goggles shouldn't have worked after that EMP, but I'll try and forgive that..
Billy apparently driving KITT, though maybe it was only for that bit and KITT took over in Attack Mode since we didn't see anything.


What I was indifferent to:

Everything else.


I'm sure I could go on but clearly this has gone on way too long and I could ramble on longer. I doubt anyone will manage to read all of this without at least taking a break or three. I guess over all though, with keeping it in comparison with the other episodes and especially last week's, a 4/10 and now I'd say no episode so far as made it past a seven for me which may also be too high. I'm sure that if I went back and re-watched them I'd be less generous than I was in the old episode topics. We have over a month until Knight Fever which my expectations for are less than zero.

It's something that I mentioned bugging me in the first episode and I have to agree with Mike, it's not Knight Rider. Even as a continuation 22 years later, it's completely lacking the heart, soul and spirit of the original series and I don't mean any of the original cast. I could have dealt with the government angle for these episodes if the writing was better and they had some logical explanations behind it, I agreed with the idea of being light on background and "mythology" with self contained stories and stuff like that but it just hasn't worked and while I'm sure it was in a lot of ways, the plan for things to go the direction they have since they were so far into filming before the first episode aired, the writing to get there has mostly been abysmal. I don't blame the cast, but the writers, Gary Scott Thompson and especially NBC should have had their priorities straight from the start and that includes this relationship with Ford which is clearly one sided and on the wrong side. Instead of trying to do things "their own way" like so many failed adaptations have done they should have looked at the original series, the entire series and looked at what worked and what didn't, there wasn't a natural or even logical progression to show us how things got to where they were. It wasn't updating the concept, it was taking the concept, throwing it away and then trying to come up with one's own idea as to what the show should be. I don't know if the "new and improved" episodes are going to do that, but I think they should have in the first place now. I'll still hold out hope that things are going to greatly improve but if they screw up KARR's pending return (that also includes Charles apparently making a new KARR for some stupid reason and it not being related to the original) I might be done. I'm no longer going to let them blind me with throwing the occasional bone here an there that I've allowed to occasionally distract me either.

Holy crap! I said I could go on and then I did! Okay okay, I'm done this time, really.

Got that right.

[Skav]

I'm from the UK and was ironically in Vegas the week of this episode so got to see it. It was a pile of poo. If this is what KR is now then the series doesn't have much hope. No wonder they are making big changes. The episode was just plain boring. Where was the stunts? The FUN? The comedy is forced and dumb.

I really had my hopes up for it and was excited to see it but was severely let down.

Btw, you guys have too many commercials in between. This affected my enjoyment too. Over here in the UK, for an hour's episode of a tv show we have about 2-3 breaks max. Over there it must have been about 6 or 7. Ridiculous.