*- Note. This review is for the entire pilot, not merely "Part 1".
Even without the obvious nostalgia, Knight Rider may just be my favorite television series of all-time. A fact confirmed the last few months as I've cherry picked my way through various episodes. But I'd yet to revisit the pilot. Something that I rectified today.
Like many pilot episodes, "Knight of the Phoenix" still had some kinks to work out. The biggest here is that K. I. T. T. doesn't feel like the one that we know. He's very cold and clinical here. You expect going in that it will take some time for he and Michael to bond, but had K. I. T. T. remained as he does here, the chemistry between he and Michael would never have developed and the series would've sank as a result.
The 'Hoff on the other hand more or less has Michael down cold. He's a tinge less easy going here, not yet possessing what I've dubbed the "Cheerful heroics" which would come to define the character. But he's already a likable protagonist and carries this first episode on his Member's Only clad shoulders.
One of the other highlights is that the episode is a cavalcade of 70's/80's guest actor players. There's go-to baddie Lance LeGault, Richard Anderson, Bert Rosario, Charles Napier, Michael D. Roberts. Even Battlestar Galactica's Herbert Jefferson Jr. Shows up! But it's the impossibly beautiful, stunning, sexy, awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping, make you believe that there is a God Phyllis Davis who steals the show. This woman could've made me do terrible things and I'd have thanked her for it.
Overall "Knight of the Phoenix" is a reasonably entertaining start, but grading on a curve. It just doesn't match the series at its best.
Even without the obvious nostalgia, Knight Rider may just be my favorite television series of all-time. A fact confirmed the last few months as I've cherry picked my way through various episodes. But I'd yet to revisit the pilot. Something that I rectified today.
Like many pilot episodes, "Knight of the Phoenix" still had some kinks to work out. The biggest here is that K. I. T. T. doesn't feel like the one that we know. He's very cold and clinical here. You expect going in that it will take some time for he and Michael to bond, but had K. I. T. T. remained as he does here, the chemistry between he and Michael would never have developed and the series would've sank as a result.
The 'Hoff on the other hand more or less has Michael down cold. He's a tinge less easy going here, not yet possessing what I've dubbed the "Cheerful heroics" which would come to define the character. But he's already a likable protagonist and carries this first episode on his Member's Only clad shoulders.
One of the other highlights is that the episode is a cavalcade of 70's/80's guest actor players. There's go-to baddie Lance LeGault, Richard Anderson, Bert Rosario, Charles Napier, Michael D. Roberts. Even Battlestar Galactica's Herbert Jefferson Jr. Shows up! But it's the impossibly beautiful, stunning, sexy, awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping, make you believe that there is a God Phyllis Davis who steals the show. This woman could've made me do terrible things and I'd have thanked her for it.
Overall "Knight of the Phoenix" is a reasonably entertaining start, but grading on a curve. It just doesn't match the series at its best.