Oct 2, 2008 01:20 PM
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San Francisco, 11:57 PM
Tue Feb 9
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This week, Knight Rider proved all its critics wrong with a complex look into post-traumatic syndrome for war veterans and the way it can lead them into ever more dangerous situations in search of the adrenaline rush that combat provided, compellingly written and sensitively performed by actors easily transcending their soap operatic roots. No, only joking; really, they just channeled all kinds of gender stereotypes and mixed it with ridiculous action sequences for another weirdly compelling hour of what may be the worst hour on television.
Like it or not, there really is something compelling about Knight Rider. After all, what other show dispenses with all but three forms of dialogue altogether (Those being "exposition", "banter" and "attempts at wisdom that sadly fail," in case you're wondering), because it's so safe in the knowledge that no-one watching cares about what anyone is saying? It's that certainty in their audience's expectations - and their desire to meet those expectations - that leads to such scenes as Lead Hot Female Character (Let's face it, no-one really cares about her name) wandering around the show's faux-Playboy Mansion complaining about the objectification of women while Mike uses KITT's surveillance camera feed to zoom in on cleavage and drool (Don't worry too much about that objectification of women thing, though, audience - because not only is said LHFC happy to show off her body just as much as any of the faux-Playmates, she'll also happily tell everyone that she wants to make love on a tropical beach while listening to classical music two minutes later as a thank you to Mike for... something that I'm not entirely sure about). Or the camera's love of women's legs as they walk past, which is almost as prevalent as its love of meaningless shots of KITT speeding about.
It's easy - and probably safer for your sanity - to ignore the plot of the show (Which was, basically, Mike is trying to hunt down bad guys, finds them at the world's first The Fast And The Furious-theme bar which also just happens to employ his Iraq vet buddy, who turns out to be working with the bad guys, but the good guys win in the end when the bad guy accidentally drives off a cliff and blows up), and definitely ignore the surreal subplot (Mike's tattoo makes KITT accidentally reveal hidden files about him and the shadowy Government Agency that he works for - all of whose employees who seem to have gone to Shadowy Agency school with Bionic Woman's Berkut Group - act all shadowy and dismissive about the whole thing: What Could It Mean?), and just focus on the dodgy life lessons, instead. This is what I learned from watching last night's episode:
Being A Man Means Learning To Take A Punch Of More Than One Kind
Women Sure Look Good In Bikinis
Cowboys Are Cool
I guess I could add "When trying to escape from the authorities, look where you're going so that you don't drive over a cliff or something," but I kind of thought that that might just be common sense. Maybe not.
In the end, I'm not sure what the point of Knight Rider is - guilt-free carporn with added bikinis and ass for nervous NASCAR fans, perhaps? - but I find myself hypnotized by its shamelessness and cluelessness in equal quantities. It may be the worst show on television, but in such a way that I kind of want to keep watching, to see just where the hell it's going to go next.
(Well, apart from swift cancellation, that is.)
Send an email to Graeme McMillan, the author of this post, at graeme@io9.com.
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