Knightrider...LIVES!

So, last evening, my sweet Baboo and I were snuggling on the couch, coughing and wheezing tenderly at one another. He has reached the dreaded "breakup of the phlegm" stage, while I am merely in the "hacking up a lung" stage of disease. Needless to say, our children were avoiding us completely.

But there we were, in search of mindless entertainment, when what should come up on the screen but a repeat of the pilot for KNIGHTRIDER! The NEW Knightrider! I must admit to some skepticism, but Blaise (my sweet Baboo) was all in favor of it.

I've never seen a two hour commercial for Ford before!

This makes comic books look like Shakespeare by comparison. The plot...such as it was...involved generic Bad Guys breaking into the home of an elderly genius to steal his data for the Prometheus Project for any number of nefarious reasons. Before he can give them the codes, he has a heart attack and...dies! The Bad Guys go prowling through the house and discover in the garage, a rather tricked-out FORD Mustang, which comes to life and roars off into the night! The car is on a mission to save the genius's hot twenty-something daughter who is apparently a full professor at Stamford.

The Bad Guys go after the girl! In the middle of all this, a hawt woman is surfing, and then comes up from the beach to her fabulous beachfront house, and peels off her T-shirt and takes an outdoor shower in her tiny bikini top. This goes on for quite some time. I poked my sweet Baboo and asked him just what this actually contributed to the plot, but he was too mesmerized to answer. Eventually the young lady goes into her fabulous and very expensively furnished Beachfront property to dress. Another young lady is in her bed, and it is established that she's a fabulous fabulous (and apparently quite well-to-do) lesbian. She's also apparently an FBI agent. Wow! They pay those people a whole lot more than I ever thought, if she can afford a beachfront house in California!

The Bad Guys try to capture the young hot professor daughter, but she is SAVED! Saved by KITT the Car! The FORD car. There then ensues quite the CAR CHASE through the winding hilly landscape. The FORD Mustange miraculously avoides being hit by other FORD cars, while being hotly pursued by another nice new FORD car. Eventually, the FORD pursuer gets stopped by almost hitting a large FORD truck, and the FORD Mustang (KITT) escapes! Brilliantly! There is also a helicopter, but it isn't a FORD. There is at one point a Volvo, which isn't a FORD, but it is owned by FORD, so that it all works out in the end.

There's more of course. Eventually, they go to Las Vegas to find the male lead to all of this, known as Mike Tracer! Ooh, what a manly manly name! But not quite manly enough, so I start calling him Lance Studly. At this point, Blaise and I are doing Nyquil shots every time Lance...um...Mike...does something stupid, which is quite a lot. Lance (Mike) owes some lowlife in Las Vegas $90,000 for some reason, and he has to repay him...by MIDNIGHT! Or ELSE! Lance(Mike) is in a casino trying to raise the money,when the hot Stamford professor runs in and begs him to help her.

Reluctantly he does so. And by doing so, loses his chips. Which leads me to another question. What happens to those chips when the good guy has to run out and save the day? The same thing happened in that first issue of The Brave & the Bold, when Hal has just won a small fortune, but he and Batman have to go and save the Universe. Does the Casino get the money? Or do they all just split it up amongst themselves? Is there a special fund for it?

Anyway, they both run off in the Car. This leaves Lance's(Mike's) nerdy flunky of a mechanic friend in dire straights, as the low-lifes are going to kill him, but what the heck.

At this point, all the Nyquil starts to take effect, and I nod off. I can only assume that much awesomeness occurs while I am asleep. When I do wake up, they are still driving around in the CAR, being chased, but Lance(Mike) finally gets fed up with being chased and spins out KITT, and the FORD chase vehicle crashes into the side! KITT is just fine, but the other nice FORD car is demolished and the bad guys either killed or hurt. And her father who was supposed to be dead is in the back seat, with just a bump on the noggin! Woohoo!

Then Lance Studly(Mike's) mother apparently dies, and they all get dressed up to go to her funeral, including the nebbishy mechanic, who the last time I saw him, was being held at gunpoint by the low-lifes, but without any mention of it, survived and is now dressed in a suit. And then David Haselhoff shows up. The original Michael Knight! And Lance Studly's Father!

So Lance(Mike) agrees to work for the Good Guys, the music swells, and he and KITT are dropped out of a plane into Prague or something. The plane has propellers. This is the most advanced cybernetics, nanotechnology whatever on the planet, and they are flying around in a WWII surplus plane...with propellers.

The acting is horrible, with the possible exception of Val Kilmer as the car. I laughed my ass off.