Did Knight Rider Jump the Shark with SPM ??

[K2000kid]

i always thought jumping the shark was going to extremes to get viwers tuned back in
ie the infamous momemt where the Fonz JUMPS A SHARK

SO i always imagined the writers for the show saying Hey lets "jump the Shark this season"
who ever imagined they'd make KITT look like Orca

[cloudkitt]

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.

Wow, when I was little I liked SPM SO much better than I do now. I don't dislike it now, it neither bothers me nor excited me. But, man, when I saw that I thought that was coolest thing ever, haha.

(EDIT:ack...I apologize, I didn't realize this was a bumped thread and that I posted in it already...)

[PHOENIXZERO]

I liked it when I was little also, now I'm kind of indifferent to it because come on, reality in this show? Do I even need to bring up KITT's magical Microwave Jammer?

Anyway the problem I had with SPM when I got older is that I noticed that all they did was speed up the film when KITT went into it. Which became extremely obvious when things would pass by and the wind would blow them super fast or traffic in some spots (I think that happened once or twice) was also moving fast.

[Making_Waves_of_my_Own]

> Anyway the problem I had with SPM when I got older is that I noticed that all they did was speed up the film when KITT
> went into it. Which became extremely obvious when things would pass by and the wind would blow them super fast
> or traffic in some spots (I think that happened once or twice) was also moving fast.

Phoenix, during SPM, you mean you also caught a bird or two flying past KITT at Mach 1?

[PHOENIXZERO]

Hahaha, that too. The effect was so poorly done, that alone should be a shark jumping moment. I know there were limitations back then but still, that was horrible. I'm glad I wasn't old enough to really notice it back then (I wasn't even in kindergarten) or else that probably would be bugged me to no end. A lot of the nostalgia I hold from shows from back when I was really young kind of has been destroyed after I saw them again when I was older. Though I'm forgiving when it's things like this and I at least kind of understand why they were how they are but some stuff just doesn't have that excuse, heh.


Also the disappearance of Bonnie and the sudden appearance of April, followed by April disappearing and Bonnie returning, though I dunno if that really qualifies as a shark jumping moment, hmm.

[Amir]

It wasn't just SPM. There's one episode, I think the 19th Hole, where in the end someone challenges Michael to a one-on-one race. Obviously KITT is off quickly, by the time its opponent manages to move, it's just that while KITT is speeding away at great speed, you can see in the background people, or at one one person, walking at a 100 MPH.

[knightturbo]

It jumped for me when KITT started doing that stupid transformer effect. I guess that was season4. I'm still not really a transformer fan.

[davejames]

I've always thought SPM was pretty cool, actually. I don't think it looks too "clunky" or any of those other things people describe it as (of course I've always loved that gadgety kind of stuff).

My only problem was that, from that point forward, it seemed to be used at the exclusion of everything ELSE. Instead of mixing it in as another cool feature for use in certain occasions, it became essentially the "new turbo boost" of the show. We would see it twice an episode whether it was remotely necessary or not.

It didn't help of course that the quality of the storytelling started to go downhill too in the final season. But SPM in and of ITSELF was perfectly fine I thought.

[PHOENIXZERO]

It wasn't just SPM. There's one episode, I think the 19th Hole, where in the end someone challenges Michael to a one-on-one race. Obviously KITT is off quickly, by the time its opponent manages to move, it's just that while KITT is speeding away at great speed, you can see in the background people, or at one one person, walking at a 100 MPH.

Ahhh yeah! I was referring to the episode in another topic the other day, just it became more prevalent after SPM was introduced.

[pheonix_knight]

whats the episode (pre Season 4) where theres a race between KITT and another car (some kind of hotrod) right at the end??

in the last shot the camera is attached to the Hot Rod filming KITT tearing away but looking at the ground you can see the camera car is actually slowing down...

[King2000]

SPM was the best thing since sliced bread when I was 4 years old. When I started watching the series again in my 20s, it was absolute comedy to watch. Its way over done, but keep in mind there will be 3 modes for the new KITT. We will see something similar to this with Attack mode, and Hero mode.

[spyhunter]

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.

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.

At least the scenes weren't exactly the same, they always had a little bit different timing and sound to them, so they were trying to be different, that made it bearable for me. The bad thing was one transformation that was supposed to have a moving tire, but you could easily see that the tire wasn't moving... The best scenes were when you could see the whole car in motion while EBS was activating / deactivating, if only they could have done that with the rest of the fins...

It's interesting how many different opinions there are of SPM, I of-course LOVED IT!

SH

[pheonix_knight]

several miles off topic....

but there was a live episode of a 'so called sitcom' over here in England called 'Two pints of Lager...' and the episode was called 'when Johnny jumed the shark' which is kind of ironic considering what the term has come to mean and also that the best episodes of this show are already behind it...

[PaoloM]

Slightly off topic: in Junk Yard Dog, how the hell is it possible that KITT is unable to free itself from the fork lifter with just a bit of turbo boost??

[rhdaussiekitt]

I didnt care much for spm, but I did love kitt as a converible, that's cool, only thing I would miss is the over head console

[Lost Knight]

Since I was first introduced to Super Pursuit Mode as a kid when the fourth season was originally airing, I loved it back then. Of course I think very differently now, and probably would have seen the creative desperation and scrutinized the design as opposed to just enjoying it. But, I still think it's an awesome feature and have to say that it didn't "jump the shark." It was just a fresh new change that the show needed. The only thing is that perhaps I wouldn't have split the front nose in half and would have just had it only extend outward.