After finally accepting his new identity, Michael gets to work on his plan to bring those who shot him in the face to justice. Although the obvious thing to do would be to go to the cops and say:
"Hey I'm Michael Long. I used to be a cop and I was working undercover in Vegas when this woman shot me in the face. If you like, I will testify in a court of law saying she did it."
But TV is never that simple. Especially in shows like this. It'll be MUCH more entertaining if he brings the bad guys to justice by ramming his new Trans-Am through walls and jumping over bridges and entering demolition derbies with them ... Wouldn't you agree?
Also, in case you aren't aware of this, Michael Knight is a fucking idiot. Let's just get that out of the way. This guy is so retarded, that Wilton Knight could've done more to fight crime if he just gave the car to a third grade spelling bee champion. Seriously. Each episode in the series has a least one moment in it which dumbfounds even the most faithful Knight Rider fans. How is it possible that anyone is that stupid?
As the plot thickens, we learn that Tanya (the girl who shot Michael in the face) has been seen in Silicon Valley, so Michael takes off on a long drive.
With 110 miles to go, he decides to listen to some hideous country music while on the road. He promptly FALLS ASLEEP WHILE DRIVING, even though the speedometer shows that he's travelling at about 132 mph. Luckily, K.I.T.T. takes over, and all Michael has to do is fudge his way through one encounter with the police who caught him (literally) asleep at the wheel. Hah! One of the cops even says: "This boy's a hard core alch-y" Hmm ... I wonder if that was an 'in- joke' at the time?
Next up: Another great moment that showcases Michael's absolutely amazing crime-solving ability. As he arrives at silicon valley, the first thing he sees is a sign with the word "COMTRON" on it. "Sounds like a good place to start." he says. He then proceeds to a bar located across the street and orders a bunch of drinks. Wow. Sherlock Holmes he ain't. -1 point for stumbling across the bad guy's favorite bar because it was the first thing you looked at when you arrived in town.
Play the quicktime to check out this brutal scene
For anyone who's keeping score, Michael would've died like an idiot here if it wasn't for K.I.T.T. You lose Michael Knight. -1 point for narrowly escaping Darwinism, and -20 points for your awful taste in music.
As his waitress (played by the saucy star of 80's television: Pamela Susan Shoop) brings the latest round of drinks, he chats her up and learns that she had previously worked at COMTRON. When he tries to get more information from her by posing as a friend of Tanya Walker's she gets pissed off and dumps a drink in his lap, all the while ranting about how COMTRON ruined her life. She stomps off.
After dark, Michael shows up in the parking lot and meets Maggie (the waitress) as she gets off from work. He hypnotizes her with his giant cowboy belt buckle, and she ends up agreeing to help him. On the car ride back to her place she explains that her husband had worked for COMTRON as head of security, but when he got wind of some suspicious activity, he turned up dead. She also says that COMTRON is hosting a charity demolition derby the next day, and that Tanya Walker will be there. Michael plans to enter the derby and win it ... and hopefully show off K.I.T.T.'s amazing abilities to a point where Tanya and her buddies will be tricked into trying to steal the car and sell it's technology along with their other liberated industrial secrets.
I guess he's pretty lucky that not only did the waitress happen to be able to tell him everything he needed to know, but also that his opponents are hosting an automobile related event he can easily win.
By the way Mikey, -1 point for having a waitress do all your detective work for you.
So Michael brings along Maggie and her young son to this charity event, and wouldn't ya know it? Her son 'Buddy' decides to hide in K.I.T.T.'s back seat so he can see the demolition derby up close. What that means to us is that we're about to be treated to a silly scene with some super-low budget production value. First of all, the crowd, which is largely portrayed by old stock footage from NASCAR races, disappears in all of the wide shots. Second, even though Michael says he's put K.I.T.T. on auto cruise you can clearly see the stunt man steering him once he goes up on two wheels. Thirdly, check out that dummy of the kid in the passenger seat! Not exactly what I'd call convincing.
Next, the kid starts pressing buttons. And what do these buttons do? They activate the James Bond features like oil slick and smoke screen. This combined with a few more car stunts wins Michael the race, and Tanya and her buddies take the bait.
- 5 POINTS FOR HAVING BUDDY OUTSMART THE BAD GUYS WITH KITT'S FEATURES INSTEAD OF DOING IT YOURSELF.
Play the quicktime to see some silliness
So Michael goes to meet Tanya at the same shitty bar that he picked up Maggie at earlier. Only instead of showing up herself it seems Tanya has sent the angry drivers whom Michael had just whipped in the auto race the day before. They threaten to kick Michaels ass, and he responds with: "I hate to tell you guys this, but I'm heavily trained in martial arts." What follows is the lamest fight sequence ever ...
The next scene shows Michael in jail, and K.I.T.T. getting towed to the impound lot. Meanwhile Tanya and her cronies try their best to disassemble K.I.T.T. to no avail. Tanya starts to panic though, and makes plans to sell one last secret and then get the shit-hell outta dodge.
We're not even treated to one single shot of Hasselhoff doing anything! In fact, we don't even get his stunt double doing anything. Instead you just see the angry drivers running at him, and getting tossed out the doors onto the pavement. Also worth noting is the fact that Michael never EVER mentions his martial arts training again throughout the series. I guess Hasselhoff didn't really have what it took to pull that shit off. Check out this quicktime to see how bad it is ...
Meanwhile, Michael paces back and forth impatiently within a jail cell. In a totally pointless scene he brags to one of his cell mates about how he used to work for army intelligence back in 'Nam. Not only does this seem ridiculously absurd based on how young he is, it's also super cheezy and schmaltzy. Can't they think up something better than that?! Anyway, K.I.T.T. roars to life and busts right through the jail wall in a spectacular rescue scene. Michael jumps in the car and takes off back to COMTRON. When he arrives he deduces that the best way for him to sneak in is via the roof, so he has K.I.T.T. eject his useless ass 100 feet up to the top of the building. Don't bother asking how the car actually does this, you'll just bog down the pace of the story. Once inside, he makes his way to Tanya's office, where they have a quick showdown that results in her getting away with the evidence, and Michael getting the standard-issue-gunshot-wound-to-the-shoulder. With Tanya on a big head start to the airport, Michael knows it's now a race to get there first and stop her.
