Product Description

An iconic TV classic is back and better than ever in the reinvented, updated, and super-charged Knight Rider Season One. From executive producers Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity franchise), David Bartis (The O.C.) and Glen Larson (Battlestar Galactica) comes this action-packed series about the coolest car ever created, K.I.T.T. (Knight Industries Three Thousand), that’s equipped with artificial intelligence capable of hacking into any computer, the weapons system of a jet fighter, and incredible custom body technology that allows it to transform into other vehicles. Relive every Season One episode as an elite team of crime-fighters work with K.I.T.T. to track down elusive, high-tech villains. Presented in uninterrupted Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, you won’t want to miss this fast-paced ride to the wild side!

.com

The '80s television phenomenon Knight Rider, in which David Hasselhoff and his hair teamed up with an erudite wonder car named KITT to fight crime, has undergone a variety of stalled attempts at a revival over the years, with a number of TV movies and short-lived syndicated series that failed to capture the original's wisecracking and smooth-riding formula. Most successful, however, was 2008's big-budget (and nicely self-aware) revamp, in which the son of the original Michael Knight takes the driver's seat of KITT's latest incarnation, this time a nanotech-sporting Shelby Mustang (voiced by Val Kilmer) with all sorts of new whiz-bang junk in the trunk.

Despite an onscreen benediction from the Hoff himself, the two-hour pilot movie admittedly clunks a bit, with a few too many cross-country trips and a lack of any real hissable villains. Things improve considerably once the regular series begins, however, as Man and Car face off against the likes of terrorist surfers, nitro-burning street racers, and many other evildoers equipped with a plethora of expendable, easily explodable vehicles.

Formulaically enjoyable as these early bikini-intensive episodes often are, though, things really pick up mid-season, with a genuinely tense three-part story arc that ups the dramatic ante, makes some surprising alterations to the cast roster, and, most importantly, reintroduces KITT's ticked-off cyborg nemesis KARR. The lack of a second season brought an end to this late-blooming creative surge, unfortunately, but, overall, this remains a breezily escapist, slickly helmed revamp that manages to do its daddy proud. Any series that features both KITT morphing into a truck and comes up with a scientific reason for its human leads to strip down to their underwear within the first 10 minutes of its first episode is a show with a firm understanding of exactly what it is. Special features include cast and crew commentary on the pilot, a rather overproduced gag reel, and several featurettes about the original series that should keep gearheads briefly riveted. --Andrew Wright