With the upkeep of the garden required due to the approach of summer, and the impromptu booking of a second holiday this year (more of that in a future update), it’s been a busier week than most…
… but I’ve still written a lot these last few days. Granted, most of it was for the blog post about Knight Rider that I put up yesterday, but still. Words are words. That essay is probably the longest thing I’ve ever posted on my site, and it was certainly a lot of fun to research and report. It’s a topic that will not be of interest to most, but hopefully there is enjoyment to be had for all from its analysis.
On that note, I have put a lot of effort into my site this year, and it means that even when I don’t have a story in front of me, I will at least be writing something.
*Edit — this was supposed to be a brief discussion about Knight Rider. By no means did I intend to write a 2200 word essay about it!
Knight Rider, a shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist.Michael Knight, a young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless… in a world of criminals who operate above the law.
The grandiose opening narrative is familiar to anyone who was a fan of the show, and that theme is a perfect slice of eighties synth-pop that is hard to rail against. That music holds up even now. The rest of the show – well, I’ll get to that…
When I was a child – specifically, when I was about ten years old – Knight Rider was my favourite TV show by quite some margin. Yeah, the one with the crazy black car with all the cool gadgets. Looking back on it now, I can see that what I was watching was basically a watered-down version of James Bond – from the tricked out vehicle to the beautiful girls.
I had Knight Rider posters on my bedroom walls. I read the annuals. Hell, for a while I even thought I would grow up to look like David Hasselhoff with that big eighties bouffant he sported. Suffice to say, the show has always been special to me, but is it like that because I have continued to wear those rose-coloured glasses and refused to question the show’s validity in the twenty-first century, or are my reasons for keeping it close to my heart justified? Is Knight Rider as great today, as it absolutely was when I was a kid?
Ski Mode
Although I have seen the odd episode here and there since its heyday, I haven’t watched the entire run, and I certainly haven’t done so with anything other than child-like admiration. I wasn’t critical of it then. I wanted to look at it with (ironically) fresh eyes – to see if I can appreciate it as a discerning adult, and also to see what it was about it that I fell in love with as an impressionable ten year old. Hopefully history has been kind to my memories.
Turbo Boost
Because I was curious, I went back and counted: over one third of the show’s ninety episodes have ‘Knight’ in the title. I suppose this doesn’t mean anything really, but it does stick out to me as an example of the producers pandering to the children in the audience, and there were many of those, because what I came to appreciate while watching Knight Rider as an adult, is that it is most decidedly a show for kids. I should probably have known that, but I didn’t remember it that way at all. I genuinely thought it was a family show, but it’s really not. In fact, after watching all ninety episodes it’s apparent to me that I don’t actually remember many of them. Sure, I remember the big things that happen, and I know the feel of the show, but the minutiae of each episode – of any episode – has found a way out of my head over the last thirty-plus years. It’s a little alarming, but probably expected after such a long absence.
Michael Long
Knight of the Phoenix is the movie-length pilot, and it introduces us to the three central characters that will persist throughout the show. Michael Knight is played by David Hasselhoff, but the series begins with a Michael Long. Long is played for not-very-long-at-all by Larry Anderson.
Devon Miles
Devon Miles is the elderly Englishman, played by Edward Mulhare, who leads the covert government operation known as the Foundation for Law And Government (FLAG). Devon is usually level-headed and also acts as Michael’s emotional balance when things get a little dangerous. He is presented as a father-figure for Michael as well. It’s a relationship which is maintained throughout the entire series, and one that even grows towards genuine friendship by the end of the run.
KITT is the modified Trans-Am that does all the cool tricks, and the real reason anyone who watched this show, did. He is brought to life by William Daniels, and as voicework goes, I’d say Daniels is nigh on perfect for the role.
Michael Knight
So, back to the pilot…
Michael Long is a detective in Las Vegas who gets shot point blank in the face and left for dead… which also makes this quite a violent first handful of minutes for a programme that is aimed at children. There are a lot of jarring visual and audio edits before Anderson gives up the role, including sometimes over-dubbing Hasselhoff’s voice, and (even more oddly) occasionally substituting his body in longer shots. But it was the eighties, and production values were not what they are now. I can’t see this kind of editing faux pas making the cut these days. It took me out of the scenes, but I can grudgingly give it a pass. And yes, I agree: the set-up of the show is a little ropey, but it’s certainly not the wildest introduction I’ve ever seen on television.
KITT
Long then awakens in the mansion of eccentric millionaire Wilton Knight, with a new face thanks to some stellar cosmetic surgery. His car has also gone under the knife, and it is now the souped-up machine that inarguably becomes the most iconic television vehicle of the decade. Everyone knows KITT, even those three people who have never seen Knight Rider.
The bromance between Michael and KITT is quick to get off the ground and the writers really don’t waste any time getting their banter up and running. By the time the pilot ends, and the bad guys have been dealt with, their relationship is fairly solid and well defined, and it stays consistent throughout the entire series. The camaraderie between man and machine is one aspect of Knight Rider that is still great after all this time.
Bonnie Barstow
In the second episode we are introduced to Bonnie Barstow, played by Patricia McPherson. She is KITT’s long-suffering resident mechanic, and the Q to Michael’s Bond, to stick with that comparison. As well as being the good-looking grease-monkey, and technical whiz, she is the object of Michael’s chaste affections. He never gets anywhere with her, but then again, there’s only so much you can do with the audience sitting in front of the TV, so their budding romance never blooms into anything beyond a little flirtation.
KARR
The first season as a whole is not too bad but I’ll be honest: it is mostly forgettable stuff. The first handful of episodes operate on an extremely small scale, where the stakes are mostly parochial at best, and it is perhaps telling that the only thing I genuinely remember about this season is the introduction of KITT’s nemesis KARR in Episode 8, Trust Doesn’t Rust. At least this battle makes things feel a little more important. For the first time, KITT and Michael are vulnerable. The episode obviously resonated with other viewers too, because once that challenge is dealt with, KARR makes his second and final appearance in the Season Three episode, KITT vs KARR.
Goliath
On that note, the best episodes of Knight Rider are unequivocally the ones in which KITT is damaged or destroyed and has to be rebuilt, although seeing KITT busted and broken still saddens me, even as an adult, such is my affection for the car. As much as I never tired of Michael hitting Turbo Boost and watching KITT hit the ramp that was never quite as hidden as I thought it was as a child, I was always happy to see the protagonists face a new challenge because it would inevitably lead to KITT getting some kind of overhaul – be that a new function that would only be used for that particular episode, or a change in appearance that would fundamentally alter the way KITT looked.
KITT’s new white jacket, from Junk Yard Dog
In Goliath, the Season Two opening double feature, which gives us perhaps the show’s greatest enemy, KITT has a laser installed after a collision with the deadly truck. The Season Three opening double header, Knight of the Drones sees KITT annihilated by a missile, after which he is rebuilt with a new dashboard. Junk Yard Dog, also from Season Three, lays claim to the show’s most horrifying death, where KITT is dumped into an acid pit. And finally, Knight of the Juggernaut; the Season Four opening double episode, gives KITT the most attention-grabbing makeover of the entire show, but more on that later…
April Curtis
Bonnie is inexplicably absent from the show for the duration of Season Two, and is replaced by April (played by Rebecca Holden). Just as KITT is occasionally given a makeover, April – with the flowing red locks and the flashy smile – is certainly a visual upgrade, but her reason for being there is never explained. She has neither the chemistry with Michael, nor the gravitas to pull off a specialist mechanic, and she is released into the wild after Season Two ends, at which point Bonnie comes back for Seasons Three and Four. April is never referenced again. This makes Season Two somewhat of an anomaly, although not without its great moments – not least of all The Hoff trying to pull off the evil twin brother shtick in both Goliath and Goliath Returns with nothing but a stick-on moustache, a cane, and an angry intonation. Truly classic television.
RC3
RC3 (played by Peter Parros) is the only character addition to Season Four. He is the token black dude the show runners obviously added to the cast to inject a little street smarts into the mix. He sometimes helps Michael with the heavy lifting and gets involved in a few punch-ups, but it feels like he is mostly there for cynical reasons rather than the development of any storyline. He’s harmless enough, but then he did give us Super Pursuit Mode.
I really don’t like Super Pursuit Mode. It allows KITT to travel 40% faster than his previous maximum speed of 300mph. This also means that every time it’s used (and trust me; it’s used a lot throughout the final season) we have to watch the same Transformer-style animation. It’s cool at first, but it gets old very quickly.
Super Pursuit Mode
Super Pursuit Mode was installed after KITT was taken apart in Knight of the Juggernaut, and it was probably intended to shake things up, to try and maintain the show’s relevance, but it’s an unnecessary upgrade. Its activation turns the sleek black Trans-Am into a hulking Lego-like behemoth that has more in common with Nolan’s Batmobile than it does the vanilla version of KITT pre-facelift. The function comes complete with the fantastically rubbish Emergency Braking System, which sees KITT stopping from a speed of over 400mph in a matter of metres with the use of, well… flaps.
Emergency Braking System
Oh yeah, and KITT now has a convertible option for those lazy days under the desert sun, but that’s just silly.
Topless KITT
Season Four is also noteworthy for the pivotal episode, The Scent of Roses, in which Michael gets married, only to (spoilers) watch his wife get shot and killed at the ceremony. Originally conceived as the final episode of the show – which would have wrapped up the character arc quite nicely – it actually sits oddly in the middle of the season which, from a storytelling perspective, doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. He’s back in the proverbial saddle in the very next episode.
So, after all that – is Knight Rider worth watching?
I can’t judge the show as an adult, because it is not meant for the me of 2019. Other than nostalgia, it does not have any merits for people my age, and why should it? It’s a show for children.
Am I disappointed? Sure. I have the complete box set, but I probably won’t be going back to it, and that’s undoubtedly the saddest thing of all. But it’s important to remember that Knight Rider is also a product of its time. A ten year old today will likely not get anywhere near the same enjoyment from it that I did, because television has changed, and the people who watch it have changed too.
Today’s ten year old uses technology on a daily basis that is far more advanced than a lot of the stuff inside KITT, but that’s all right. KITT was a super-advanced vehicle in 1982… but not so much in 2019. Yes, a lot of KITT’s functionality is still sci-fi and fantasy, but in other areas it is positively archaic. Kids nowadays would laugh at the so-called hi-tech computer graphics on the dashboard.
Having said that, Knight Riderwas on the money with the satellite navigation system and the use of video calls. Both of those are common today. Self-driving cars are also in the early stages of becoming a real-world reality for the masses, so it’s only a matter of time.
And I don’t care what anyone says – that steering wheel is awesome!
Starring:Grant Cramer, Suzanne Synder, John Allen Nelson, Royal Dano, John Nelson
What’s it all about? An alien craft – which has the outward appearance of a travelling circus – lands in the woods behind a small town in the middle of America. The aliens who emerge are clowns. They carry guns that fire popcorn, and they kill people; or at the very least, they encase their victims in a plethora of pink candy floss.
Killer KlownsFrom Outer Space is (if you didn’t already know) a parody of all those bargain basement sci-fi B movies from the fifties that you have either seen or heard about, and it probably helps if you know that going in. Those movies were almost uniformly bad, which makes it hard for a parody of that style to be anything other than bad as well… So you see the dilemma?
Some of the practical effects are amusing in an eighties Muppets kind of way, and the writers should certainly be given credit for using the clowns in a variety of creative ways, but I didn’t find myself laughing much during the very brief running time.
Watching it with the kids… Yeah, sure. Don’t let the title fool you. These may very well be killer clowns, but most of the actual deaths that appear on screen are characters being either vapourised or cocooned courtesy of special effects that would make even a fan of the original sixties Star Trek show balk. Everything is done with its tongue so far in its cheek, that even when there is a little blood on screen, it’s hard to take it seriously. Language is very mild, and despite there being ample opportunity for some skin, there’s none of that either.
Verdict… I’m really torn on this one. On the one hand the acting is terrible, the script is less than basic, and the effects are a constant reminder that nobody behind the scenes gave a shit about realism; but on the other, it’s a fairly accurate reflection of those old genre tropes. So how can I hate on a movie that does exactly what it sets out to do?
I would wager that this movie is great to watch with a bunch of friends and a bottle of your favourite tipple. Ultimately however, while it has entertaining moments, I am just apathetic towards it, and I can’t give a pass to something that makes me feel that way.
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I had been brainstorming ideas for some new Jack & Patrick adventures. Seasonally inaccurate, I know, but one of those ideas is a Christmas story.
I started putting it together this week and got into it a little deeper than I had expected, so I now have a good chunk of the dialogue to work with. Although I do have other Jack & Patrick pieces in development, this will likely end up being the next – the eighth one – in the series.
I plan to send my novel Slipwater off to a few more agencies this week, because I’ve had a couple come back lately with a negative. Disheartening, sure, but writers are more familiar with rejection than most, and there’s always a contingency plan.
Besides, it’s their loss, because that story is money for the editor who is able to spot its potential.
Impending holidays are often the motivation some people need to shed a few pounds, and I’m going to use the same (fairly) arbitrary tactic to lose a few of my own. Whatever makes it happen, eh?
But seriously… I’m tired of my shirts being a little too tight, and I don’t enjoy not knowing if my jeans are going to fit me before I take them off the hanger. I’m tired of making excuses.
Most of us could stand to drop down a dress size or two, and this is my pledge to do just that.
So… five months, five stone? Probably not, but there’s no point aiming for the fence when you know you want to knock the ball clean out of the stadium.
After the many hours of enjoyment I had squeezed from the Master System as a console virgin, I upgraded to Sega’s follow-up machine, the Mega Drive, in 1991. The Mega Drive was more powerful than its predecessor, and looked a whole lot better under the living room television as well.
It was the 16-bit era, at the height of the console wars being fought between Sega and Nintendo, and I was ready for something that would blow me away. I had started getting into monthly video game magazines at this time as well, and everything I read told me the Mega Drive was going to revolutionise the world. Granted, I was buying official Sega magazines, but you know…
By this time I was earning my own money delivering papers before and after school, so being able to buy games without having to rely on my parents was a major bonus. I bought Phantasy Star II in 1992 for the hefty sum of £54.99 – expensive even by today’s money – but with inflation that amazingly comes in at just under £112. I can safely say that is the most expensive game I have ever purchased.
Sonic the Hedgehog was a massive hit for the system, and was the thrust of the machine’s early advertising campaign as it attempted to compete with Nintendo. I played that game to death, and all these years later the soundtrack is still bouncing around in my head.
My only memory of my dad playing a video game with me is Landstalker – an isometric role-playing game. I have a photo of us together, huddled in front of the TV, along with a vague recollection of moving boxes in the game, but I can’t remember any more than that. Perhaps there is a deep-seated psychological or paternal bonding reason for my fondness for the system that goes beyond just the enjoyment I found with the games themselves.
But without question, my favourite game from this era was Shining in the Darkness – a role-playing dungeon-crawler that stole a lot of my teenage time. It was crudely drawn, poorly animated, and it didn’t have a great story, but I loved it just the same. It was probably the title that got me interested in that video game genre, because I played a lot of similar games in subsequent years.
Other favourites of that era include the Michael Jackson endorsed platformer, Moonwalker; strategy game, Mega-Lo-Mania; and Sword of Vermilion, another role-playing game, that – like Phantasy Star II – also came with a massive one hundred page-plus hint book.
This wasn’t my final Sega console, but it was the one I enjoyed the most, and probably the one I had the longest.
Starring: Mila Kunis, Kate McKinnon, Justin Theroux, Gillian Anderson
What’s it all about? After Audrey (Kunis) is dumped by her boyfriend – and he is subsequently killed – she finds out that instead of being the deadbeat that she thinks he was, he was actually a spy working for the CIA. Along with her best friend Morgan (McKinnon) the two of them then travel to Austria in order to deliver a secret package.
It’s been done many times before – two characters thrust into a world of espionage and explosions, who don’t really know what they’re doing but manage to stumble their way to the end credits anyway and manage to save the day.
There’s some great stunt work in here, and the action is well done, but I think all that should be in a better movie than this. To their credit, the girls do seem to be enjoying themselves, but they may be the only ones. They have good comic timing and are fun to watch, but this movie is not. And at a few minutes shy of two hours, it’s about twenty minutes too long.
Watching it with the kids… There’s a lot of blood spilled, and some fairly grisly moments that are not suitable for the little ones. Language is quite ripe throughout as well, and although there is no sex, there is a cock and a pair of swinging balls that you may want to be aware of if you check this out.
Verdict… Both of the two female leads deserve a better script than this. It’s billed as a comedy, but it isn’t all that funny. McKinnon’s character is called Morgan Freeman, which I guess is meant to make me laugh. To be honest, the movie is far too violent far too often, and as a result, I don’t know how I am expected to react in any given scene. The Spy Who Dumped Me may have succeeded if it was a standard buddy flick, but unfortunately the tone is all over the place, and I was just left waiting for it to be over.
According to the notification I got from WordPress this morning, today is my seventh anniversary of using the service. I didn’t realise it had been so long. Before I started on here I ran a blog with Blogger for several years – a service which is still going today, but one that I felt I had outgrown. Looking back, I guess I don’t do anything here that I wasn’t doing over there, but the functionality of WordPress suits my needs a little better.
In seven years I have made 356 posts, which is an average of about one a week. I have had over 19,000 views, which is made up of 6,500 different visitors. And I have (at the time of writing this) 134 followers. Now, how many of those actually check this place out when I post something is unknown, but it’s nice to have an audience of any size.
The numbers are not a lot by any measure, except perhaps the measure of someone who hasn’t been paying too much attention to that kind of thing. The narcissist in me would like more traffic on these pages, but at the same time I understand that only happens if I post things that others are interested in reading. That part is on me.
Anyway, happy seventh birthday to me. Here’s to making this next year a great one.
Today is Good Friday, although I’m not really sure why it’s called that. Are Christians actually marking the day that Jesus was murdered? This is the guy who their entire marketing and advertising campaign revolves around. He’s the one who brings people in. Without him, there is no Christianity. They should be a little more respectful and mourning his passing as a god in their field.
Oh, wait…
But not only do they mark the day every year; it’s treated as a celebration. It’s Good Friday. It’s right there in the name. It’s not called Memorial Friday or Remembrance Friday, which would make sense, because if the day is being noted to remember Jesus, and to denounce his premature death (which it surely is), shouldn’t it be a sombre affair?
I know religion can be confusing, but I am missing the logic. Is it supposed to be ironic – as in, we know it’s actually a really shit Friday, but that doesn’t look good on a calendar? I doubt it: the church is not known for its self-deprecating sense of humour.
If you follow the script, Jesus was going about his business when he was captured by the Romans and summarily executed. Sounds like a pretty rubbish day to me. And whilst nailing me to a cross and watching me bleed out may be some people’s idea of a good time, I would like to think that most of those who care about me (yes, there are a few) would be saddened by the grisly nature of my denouement.
The same should be the case for Jesus, whose only real crime was his David Blaine style trick of turning water into wine without considering the social implications of any minors in the crowd drinking the alcohol that he had provided. Next thing Jesus knows, he’s been nabbed by one of Pilate’s guys and there’s a halo of thorns on his head. Now, if he had spent time mastering a good escape trick, rather than messing around with the loaves and the fishes, perhaps he would have been all right.
The kids are off school on Good Friday, and it’s a weekend of chocolate eggs and cute little bunnies for them, so they probably think it’s quite a good day, but I doubt that the Christian Church was thinking of that when the day was given holiday status.
Likewise, I’m sure supermarket managers and corner store owners love it too, because as they have correctly pointed out; Jesus not only died for our sins, but also so that we could spend far too much money on sweet treats.
All right, rant over. Now get back to that terrible Easter weekend television.
By this time I was earning my own money delivering papers before and after school, so being able to buy games without having to rely on my parents was a major bonus. I bought Phantasy Star II in 1992 for the hefty sum of £54.99 – expensive even by today’s money – but with inflation that amazingly comes in at just under £112. I can safely say that is the most expensive game I have ever purchased.
-- Purveyor of Imagination -- 