DVD Region 2. pub: Univeral Studios 8238697. 21 episodes and no extras. Price: £24.99 (UK) - it varies so shop around for the best deal. stars: David Hasselhoff, Edward Mulhare, Patricia Macpherson and William Daniels.

check out website: www.universal-playback.com

Watching season three of 'Knight Rider', I couldn't help recalling stunt driver and second unit director Jack Gill in an interview commenting that he was always aiming to do something spectacular each episode. Interestingly, the one episode he wasn't there was also the one where K.I.T.T. doesn't do a turbo boost. Pays to pay attention to the credits, they really do change.



For those who haven't been keeping up with the previous reviews, 'Knight Rider' was a mid-1980s TV series where a badly injured cop was involuntarily (being half-dead at the time does that) put into a witness protection programme. After plastic surgery, a new name and given a snazzy black talking car, called K.I.T.T., as companion, Michael Knight (actor David Hasselhoff) would go off after criminals who evaded the law and try to get the occasional downtime. Rather interestingly, there hasn't been a series like it since and even 'Team Knight Rider' failed to live up to the live-action stunts of this series mostly cos too many cars and it looks like an assault team.

The good news about this season was Bonnie Barstow (actress Patricia Macpherson) was back looking after K.I.T.T. and was always popular with the fans. Looking at all these episodes one after another, it was rather more obvious that the writers were determined to test the limits of K.I.T.T.'s indestructibility ranging from having a missile shot up its exhaust to being dunked in chemical sewage to being hit by lasers and napalm. All this meant was a lot of re-fits that kept Bonnie busy. Although I don't think they would use glowing lights and such these days, back in the 1980s, a lot of computer technology was still by was largely magic to the TV viewer at the time. Saying that, the installation of memory modules and such did look like familiar ground. The one victory K.I.T.T. really survived was a collision with K.A.R.R., its predecessor, finally destroying it. One would also hope that if the series or, indeed, the proposed film be made today that Michael Knight would at least carry some sort of identification to confirm who he is when helping people out.

In many respects, I almost got the feeling that producer Glen Larson was considering this to be the last season, especially as a couple plots not to mention the recycling of a couple actors in different roles, but the fans wanted more and so one more season to go after this one.

Although 'Knight Rider' might be regarded as a marginal SF show it's also an indictment that some of the things shown as made-up are actually coming to pass now with computers modulating a car's performance. It might not have an active A.I. unit or even allow your car to turbo boost over vehicles but it gave a lot of drivers something to dream about.

GF Willmetts