Did Knight Rider Jump the Shark with SPM ??

K2000kid · Post by **K2000kid** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 12:41 pm

Opinions please......

HungarianKnight · Post by **HungarianKnight** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 1:20 pm

No, they jumped the shark by adding another main character, RC3, with no real reason...

PBH · Post by **PBH** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 4:11 pm

HungarianKnight wrote:No, they jumped the shark by adding another main character, RC3, with no real reason...

Agreed.

FuzzieDice · Post by **FuzzieDice** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 9:24 pm

I don't think that Knight Rider ever jumped the shark. They got cancelled and I don't think it was due to poor storylines. I think maybe people just got tired of the novelty. Who knows. By then they had Airwolf (one my dad liked, etc.)

I think when TKR came out that's what jumped the shark before it even began. KR2K movie I think would be said to as well, but even though back then I didn't like the movie much, I liked it when I saw it on the Season 1 DVD set.

Lyn · Post by **Lyn** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 9:27 pm

"Baywatch" really jumped the shark when it changed locale and the direction of the show from pretty good to really not the show--especially when DH's character was killed off!
Actually, "Baywatch" should've left the air after its 9th season....
That killed that show in my opinion.
I don't think "Knight Rider" really jumped the shark at anything, except for its final episode.

pezze87 · Post by **pezze87** » Tue Aug 29, 2006 1:49 pm

Hi, excuse me, my english is not so well, could somebody explain me what "jump the shark" does mean!? Thx!

Fenix The Best · Post by **Fenix The Best** » Tue Aug 29, 2006 4:11 pm

I don't know how to explain it in Italian, but it Polishi it would be something like "it was just too much".

Kaine · Post by **Kaine** » Tue Aug 29, 2006 5:37 pm

i was never a fan of SPM. KITT's appeal to me has always been, that on a first look he seemed to be just an ordinary Trans-Am, a not so far spread serial model. only on a second look you could tell, how special KITT was.
with SPM he looked too futuristic, SPM was over the edge which took a lot of the credibility of the show.
SPM-KITT for me is very close to KR2000 or TKR, which lacked any conncetion to reality, why they mainly weren't as much fun as original Knight Rider was to me.

so in short: yes, SPM jumped the shark!

PBH · Post by **PBH** » Tue Aug 29, 2006 5:58 pm

pezze87 wrote:Hi, excuse me, my english is not so well, could somebody explain me what "jump the shark" does mean!? Thx!

The term "Jump The Shark" was a phrase coined after the infamous 'Happy Days' episode in which The Fonz jumped a shark on water skiis. Basically, fans felt that the show went down hill after that episode. Since then, the term has been coined and used when refering to a moment , episode or event in which a show starts to go downhill.

For details, see http://www.jumptheshark.com/ .

J-Knight · Post by **J-Knight** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 12:34 pm

Nice Pic to help explain

Skav · Post by **Skav** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 1:46 pm

I'm in agreement with ppl saying it never really jumped the shark. It's storyline is based around pure fantasy and the the addition of SPM was only making KITT drive faster. No biggie.

The "fins" only come out when this feature is activated and once de-activated, kitt looks like any other car again.

I bet the Foundation received a lot of calls from people wondering what the heck a car with fins was doing on the road, though.

kitt34 · Post by **kitt34** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 2:22 pm

Knight Rider never jumped into the final episode.

The SPM made him even sleeker even the rockets were smooth.

krfan1 · Post by **krfan1** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 1:28 am

I have thought long and ahrd on this topic. I can say without a doubt it was when Kitt was afraid of flying in "SkyKnight". Why make him scared of flying? (yes, I know it was to make KITT appear human, but c'mon?)

krfan1

TurbomanKnight · Post by **TurbomanKnight** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 1:41 am

Bonnie prgrammed KITT with the Fear of flying.

Post by **Michael Pajaro** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 3:08 am

I believe that by definition, if any TV series jumps the shark it must happen with a bad episode. I think that Juggernaut is actually one of the best episodes of the entire series (I really enjoyed the inner political conflicts of FLAG). Whether or not you like SPM, it didn't really affect the plots of future episodes that much.

However, SPM pointed to a bigger problem, and if I HAD to pick a moment when it jumped the shark for me it would have been in KITTnap (the episode right after Juggernaut) when we saw that they were using recycled footage for the SPM transformation. When I saw that, I thought "whoops, they're going cheap" and we saw far less turbo boosts from then on.

wazh · Post by **wazh** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 3:18 am

I tend to agree about RC3. Not that I had anything against the character but the premise of the show was "One Man Can Make a Difference" and as much as Michael was out there it tended to be more of a team effort.

Also there is something that was bugging me when I was watching the show the other day. It tended to be in the first season that they kept the fact that KITT could talk to outsiders down to a minimum. He tended to in later seasons just talk to anyone that was walking along the road. Not that he didnt early on.. it just seemed more.

FuzzieDice · Post by **FuzzieDice** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 6:13 pm

Probably because the AI was developing into an independantly sentient entity vs. just a voice-activated intelligent computer in a car.

KITT started making more and more of his own decisions and acting more as an individual in later episodes, more as to show I guess a development of KITT's personality and sentience.

David · Post by **David** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 12:46 pm

The SPM made him even sleeker even the rockets were smooth.

I completely disagree with this! I remember bursting into tears when I watched Knight of The Juggernaut for the first time because of how much I hated the way SPM looked!

I was a totally hardcore Knight Rider nut at the time and I felt like "hey! nobody asked *me* if they could do that!?. My 8-year-old heart was completely broken.

20 years later, I understand they were trying to hold viewer interest by upping the "wow" factor, but to me SPM is just a flawed concept from the ground up.

On the other hand, Convertible mode was cool - though even at age 8 i was thinking "where the hell does the hatch cover go?!"

I always liked RC3. Peter Parros was cool and it was nice that Michael got a human buddy to pal around with. They could have done a better job of writing him into the series though, as far as defining his character's role in FLAG business.

Akaihiryuu · Post by **Akaihiryuu** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 3:06 pm

Here's the problem with SPM (and the reason they had to use recycled footage). It required 3 cars. 1 normal car, one "SPM" car, and one transforming car. Due to the hydraulics involved, the transforming car did not have room under the hood for the engine, transmission, and all of the hydraulics, so it did not have a engine or transmission. This is why you can't see any background in the transforming shots, it simply wasn't possible. Today they would probably use CG effects to transform the car without having to use separate ones. Same goes with convertible...required 3 cars, one transforming, one convertable, one normal.

snafu · Post by **snafu** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 3:55 pm

Kaine wrote:i was never a fan of SPM. KITT's appeal to me has always been, that on a first look he seemed to be just an ordinary Trans-Am, a not so far spread serial model. only on a second look you could tell, how special KITT was.
with SPM he looked too futuristic, SPM was over the edge which took a lot of the credibility of the show.
SPM-KITT for me is very close to KR2000 or TKR, which lacked any conncetion to reality, why they mainly weren't as much fun as original Knight Rider was to me.

so in short: yes, SPM jumped the shark!

Agreed on all points. Without SPM KITT could hide under the "just a car" guise but with SPM.. honestly.. I think it made him look like a flying doorstop.

cloudkitt · Post by **cloudkitt** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 7:16 pm

David wrote: I completely disagree with this! I remember bursting into tears when I watched Knight of The Juggernaut for the first time because of how much I hated the way SPM looked!

I was a totally hardcore Knight Rider nut at the time and I felt like "hey! nobody asked *me* if they could do that!?. My 8-year-old heart was completely broken.

20 years later, I understand they were trying to hold viewer interest by upping the "wow" factor, but to me SPM is just a flawed concept from the ground up.

That's funny, it was the opposite for me. When I was little I loved SPM and came to not be so fond of it later.
I agree with Pajaro though, Knight of the Juggernaut is still among my very favorite episodes and SPM does nothing to hamper that, it's such a great episode.

I also had nothign against RC3, I liked the antics with his bike. And about the "One man can make a difference," well the show always kinda shot that in foot as it was "One man and a hyper-futuristic car can make a difference." I actually really like the episodes when the whole team gets involved.

And PBH, that's pretty fascinating about the jumped the shark, I NEVER knew where that sayign came from, haha.

James_kr · Post by **James_kr** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 6:44 am

I think SPM was really cool. The original KITT is great but SPM is still ok. I think the way it worked was the turbine had a large increase in power but it needed to stay on the ground not to mention turn corners at high speed so it had to have those things otherwise KITT would almost fly and wouldn't handle the turns properly.

PA-KnightFan · Post by **PA-KnightFan** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 9:00 am

Michael Pajaro wrote:However, SPM pointed to a bigger problem, and if I HAD to pick a moment when it jumped the shark for me it would have been in KITTnap (the episode right after Juggernaut) when we saw that they were using recycled footage for the SPM transformation. When I saw that, I thought "whoops, they're going cheap" and we saw far less turbo boosts from then on.

They used recyled footage all the time. So far, I only have Season 2 DVD, but I notice that the same shots of the semi driving down the road and KITT driving out of the semi are used over and over and over again. Its amazing what you see as a 30-something that when you were 10 years old, you never saw!

jup · Post by **jup** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 12:30 pm

Happy Days literally wrote "Jumping the shark"'s meaning for all time. It was over the top and everything afterwards was a downhill effect that went on and on and on. The longer the rolling catastraphe went, the more fans fell off.

I think that the very fact that KR 2000, KR 2010, TKR and KR: the theatre movie even exist is testimate that Knight Rider never jumped the shark. Sure, Silly Pop out Mode was desperation to avoid going downhill. The show had momentarily plateaued. But, like Star Trek, it just had to find that sailing altitude and ride it out for a few years. Which means... >_< ...there's still time for someone to push a script that makes KITT jump a shark.

Post by **Michael Pajaro** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 2:43 pm

[quote="PA-KnightFan"]They used recyled footage all the time... but I notice that the same shots of the semi driving down the road and KITT driving out of the semi are used over and over and over again. [quote]

The difference for me is that they had MANY different shots of the semi which they mixed and matched throughout the episodes. They only had 2 SPM shots: One with KITT moving, one not. (Plus a 3rd one-time night transformation.) I wouldn't have minded as much if they had 6 or 7 transformation scenes whcih they cycled through, but when they recycle footage in the second episode of the season? Not good.

Did Knight Rider Jump the Shark with SPM ??

Did Knight Rider Jump the Shark with SPM ??

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