MKSP: 103 Deadly Maneuvers
Michael Knight Sex Project: Episode 103 Deadly Maneuvers
This installment of the MKSP is going to be much more than just an assessment of Michael's sex life, though I will be sure to cover that burning question as well. This will be a much more comprehensive post-o-squee, with loads and loads of screencaps, and bits of dialogue, and things I liked (or didn't). I won't be doing episode notes like this for all of the episodes, but I really enjoy this one.
Also, since there are some folks here who've never read my episode notes before a note in warning/explanation: Basically everything behind the cut is a spoiler (if you care) but there's almost no explanation of anything. So if you don't remember the details, some of the comments are just going to be confusing.
Part of why I like this episode so much is that I absolutely remember this one from when I was fifteen and watching this show when it was on the air. 25 years later, I *remembered* it. ::squee:: That was fun.
Additional note: I can't tell if my it's my computer or Livejournal being a bitch about showing all the screencaps. If you clear your cache and reload the page you *might* get them all. Or you can go here and then page forward through the gallery to see them all in order.
--One of the things I rather miss in this episode is any sort of a transition from the pilot. At the end of the pilot, Michael's fighting against letting KITT control the car, even though Michael is bleeding and not totally with it, Michael and KITT have just started communicating and being at all comfortable with each other, and we've never seen Bonnie at all (unless she was j-random background technicians in one of the scenes at the mansion). We never really see the development from that to where *this* episode starts. That's one of the things that modern TV shows do better than older ones.
--Yay!! The cool theme music! :D Good times ahead.
--I'm *deeply* in love with KITT giving Michael advice on playing car racing computer games (while KITT is driving of course). "Michael, slow down. You're going to crash." (And yay, 1982 video game controllers. Notice how good I'm being in *not* saying that KITT has a joystick. :D)
--And then Michael does in fact crash (in the video game). "Sorry Michael, that makes it forty-two to three. My favor." I'm curious about the three games that Michael won. My guess is that they were the early ones, before KITT figured it out. :D
--"KITT go to manual. We're stopping." "Really? Why? Is there a lady in the vicinity?" "How'd you know that?" "Really, Michael, you're so predictable." So they're definitely playing into the perception of Michael as a lady's man.
--Here we have Michael meeting this week's girl of the week, Lieutenant Robin Ladd. As with most nice women on this show she's wholesomely pretty. She is, at this time, having car trouble.
--Heee!! KITT's so indignant that Michael's expecting him to *tow* Robin's car. :D "Me? Michael, I was not designed to be a tow truck. I have numerous complex systems which could be adversely affected." He sounds so *offended*.
--Randomly pretty shot of KITT after they drop Robin's car off at a garage.
--Michael's describing his work as "something like insurance". Interesting. I know he never mentions working for the Foundation, but that's an interesting way to describe what he does. Not even inaccurate--it gives a sense of the skill set involved. :D
--From the pilot we know Michael has Army experience (probably extensive) so it's cute him talking to Robin, an Army brat grown up to enter the service herself. They're kind of adorable in this scene.
--"If they'd made officers like you when I was in uniform, I never would have left." Oh, Michael. If you're going to give her a line, give her a better one than *that*.
--So why did she take Michael into the base HQ? He could have just dropped her off, right.
--Why didn't the army ever notify Robin that her father was killed? That's sloppy as hell. Oh, I see it just happened. He hadn't even been buried. Got it.
--So why is Michael at Col. Ladd's funeral? I mean he just met Robin. And how much time has passed? Is it later that day or what?
--Poor Robin at her dad's funeral. (Also, where do I recognize this actress from? Was she just in every TV show made in the early 80s?)
--Part of me is getting the impression that General Duncton may have held the funeral until Robin got there, so it's later that afternoon. Though that doesn't make a heap of sense because she's getting there a week early.
--Okay, I'm really in love with the fact that Michael wore jeans (with a tie and sport coat) to the Colonel's funeral. And the moment he walks out, he loosens his tie. :D
--I also really, really love his big rodeo-style belt buckle. I love that a lot. (You can see it in the previous cap, but I'll be watching for a better one of it. You betcha.)
--Boy, I love how tall he is. He's like a head taller than Robin is. And those yummy long legs. I'm just gonna sit over here and drool a bit and maybe let my imagination wander just a skosh...
--Oh, yeah, there's an important plot point here too. Some insensitive schmucks are suggesting that Robin's dad was drunk and that's why he got in the car accident that killed him. So she asks Michael to investigate it.
--Just a random bit of yum.
--"Michael, I'm afraid I have some alarming news." "I'm sitting down." Heee! Apparently "that towing incident" damaged KITT's alpha-circuit. I love KITT. :D And they're contacting the "home office" so he can get repaired.
--Randomly yummy picture of KITT as they're trying to recreate Col. Ladd's accident.
--In the half-hour between leaving Robin after the funeral and meeting up with her again to investigate her father's accident, Michael changed his shirt, losing all of the fancy stuff he put on for the funeral. But he didn't go back to the same polo shirt he had on when they picked Robin up, that one was burgundy.
--Michael and KITT have proved that Col. Ladd couldn't have gone off the road by accident where the report says he did. Poor Robin. Not only is her dad dead, he was murdered.
--Status check on the Sex Project. At this point Michael's got a case and doesn't appear to be the least bit interested in Robin anymore. And vice versa. So far he's given her one cheezy line and that's the extent of his attraction to her.
--So they go back to the base. Robin's going to check out her dad's quarters and Michael is going to check out his office. Umm...dude, you've got no business poking around this base? How the hell are you going to manage that?
--The buttons to roll up KITT's windows are in the center armrest/console thing. That's kind of cool.
--"KITT, we've gotta find a way in there." "We, Michael? I think I would attract a great deal of attention inside that building." (And a nice picture of KITT's original voice panel, before he got the cooler one like KARR's.)
--Michael hatches a plan.
--"Michael, I detect a certain tone in your voice." "Oh? What tone is that?" "The one where you're convinced you've come up with a brilliant idea. The next thing you know, you're doing something foolhardy and I'm in my surveillance mode." "KITT." "Yes, Michael?" "Go into your surveillance mode."
--This isn't actually a terrible plan, though he fails on the implementation. Basically he bribes convinces the sandwich vendor on base to let Michael take a tray of his wares around the base to sell them away from the truck. Oh, and to pretend that Michael's his nephew. The faulty implementation is that Michael never asked his "uncle" for his *name*. ::smacks Michael::
--"If anybody asks, I'm your nephew." "You know, for another $20, I'll adopt you."
--And, of course, the first people Michael runs into are a couple of MPs, who ask for his health card, and then run him in. That would have been another good thing for him to have sorted out with the sandwich vendor.
--Heee!! One of the business cards in Michael's wallet is for "Swedish Massage, while you wait". Oh, yes, *please*! I'll sign up for that! ::fans self::
--At least the nephew pre-arrangement works for him. :D
--Oh, how convenient, the head of the MPs, Major Raney, has the file about Col. Ladd's death on his desk and Michael's able to scoober it right out from under the noses of the two MPs who took him in. Raney will reappear, but the two candy-bar stealing MPs won't.
--Randomly pretty picture, because I've been *very* good and restrained so far this week. :D
--One of the Bad Guys just referred to Michael as "Lt. Ladd's civilian". Hee! :D
--Okay, so he and Robin went out to some greasy dive for dinner and apparently didn't discuss the case over it, because on the way out Michael suggests they should compare notes. Which they do on the way back to the base. (Apologies for the dark screencap. It's night.)
--"I sort of borrowed a file from the Military Police..."
--Yum!! ::fans self::
--He's so *nice*!! He just opened the car door for her and helped her out of the car! That's so sweet!
--Robin's calling a halt to the case because they haven't found anything conclusive. Michael suggests that they sleep on it (separately, it's very clear, he mentions his hotel by name), and, if no inspiration comes to them overnight they'll call an end to the investigation in the morning.
--Robin's awfully cute. And being terribly *functional* for a woman who suddenly and shockingly lost her beloved father. But maybe the reaction will settle in once the case is solved and she's getting into her normal life.
--Okay, that was a kind of cute little look they just gave each other. There might have been a bit of a spark there.
--Heee! KITT's damaged alpha-circuit took out the radio. I think he's just being pissy. :D
--The bad guys are trying to run KITT off the road. "Michael, I believe as usual you may have attracted the attention of some highly homicidal personalities."
--Michael and KITT run the bad guys off the road instead, and break their machine gun. :D
--Of course she's also sort of flirting with the sort-of-like-a-father-to-her General Duncton, so maybe that's just Robin's way with men she's comfortable with.
--Mmm!!
--Having determined that someone was trying to kill him, Michael convinces Robin that it's not time to abandon the case yet. They look at a map of the base and determine that Col. Ladd must have been coming from "munitions".
--Robin: "Michael, you can't go in there." Michael: "Of course not. It's still daytime."
--That threw Robin for a bit of a loop.
--Eeee!! First shot ever of KITT driving into the semi, though they hadn't quite perfected the move yet (the semi's not moving, which is part of what makes that so dang cool). And obviously the Foundation just got this rig, because it doesn't have the spiffy black and gold paint job yet. But still!!
--Bonnie and Devon. Early in the first season there's a sort of adversarial relationship between Michael and these two. Fortunately it does eventually go away.
--Bonnie's made of pure Grade A awesome. She gets a bit titchy with Michael sometimes because, well, KITT's her baby and Michael sometimes gets him hurt (like the broken alpha-circuit), but it's never really *serious*.
--Bonnie deserves special mention in the Sex Project, though she's not a Girl of the Week, because Michael does some flirting with her, though it never really goes anywhere. This is actually one of the areas where I'm quite impressed with and fond of this show--there's enough UST there that the Michael/Bonnie shippers have room to play, but not so much that one has to deal with it if one wants to put *either* of them with someone else. If only TPTB over at Leverage could hit that same balance with Sophie and Nate. My personal reading of canon is that they never do have sex or a relationship or anything, but I wouldn't have a problem with a story that suggested they had a relationship (of probably brief duration), and parted amicably.
--KITT's scanner. :D
--I love this scene!! KITT: "It's my alpha-circuit, Bonnie." Bonnie: "Your alpha-circuit? KITT, the only way you could damage that is to do something stupid like...towing another car. Right?" KITT: "Bonnie, no comment." Michael: "You're one in a million, pal." KITT: "I know." Eeee!! KITT's covering for Michael! :D
--One of minor themes so far this episode is that Michael and KITT have a case that they're *supposed* to be working on and they've ditched it to help out Robin. Devon is not pleased. "Devon, someone tried to kill me last night." "I have an alibi."
--Gosh Bonnie's cute. And she really does have some sort of fantastic superpower. I realize she's a "technician" not a "mechanic", but you'd think she'd at least have gotten *road dust* on her cute white jumpsuit.
--It's night now, so Michael's breaking into the ammunition bunker.
--Did the Army ever really develop battlefield tactical nukes that could be fired from the same artillery, erm, nugs (perhaps even an 04 WW nug, to totally jump fandoms here, and I wonder if anyone will get that reference) as armor piercing or anti-tank rounds?
--While Michael's snooping around in the ammunition bunker, Robin's finding something horrible on the computer.
--And Michael finds the blue paint. It's a clue! The Bad Guys (very very bad guys) are re-painting the battlefield tactical nukes so that they're color coded to look like armor piercing rounds. He's pretty horrified too.
--Robin, being a nice Army girl, takes her horrible information from the computer to Major Bad Guy, sitting in General Duncton's desk. And he promptly puts her under arrest and says that her father didn't know when to keep his eyes closed either.
--Fortunately Robin's assistant, Webb, sees her getting taken away by Sgt. Skeezer in an MP jeep. This becomes important later on.
--Poor Robin is locked into a *tank* with a big white X on it on the Ordinance Testing Field.
--Apparently they spent all of this episode's budget on the semi, because they didn't have $5 leftover for a set of army-esque stencils to paint this sign. Or, you know, even $1 for a ruler to make sure all the letters were the same height and the words lined up right. Hee!
--The next morning, Michael finds out that Robin's been taken off in an MP jeep (yay, Webb) and goes to Major Raney (remember him, the head of the MPs, I said he'd be back) to ask why. Raney's actually a pretty good guy, so here, have a picture. :D
--There must be a special parking space with KITT's name on it, because this is the same one they had the previous day as well. And a nice picture of KITT. :D
--Okay, so having found out that the person who took Robin away was with "munitions", Michael heads straight for the Ammunition Bunker again. There are bad guys loading a truck with the tactical nukes faked to look like armor piercing rounds. Two grunts (their nametags probably say Goon1 and Goon2) break in one direction and Maj. Bad Guy runs into the bunker. Michael sends KITT to stop Goon1 and Goon2 and goes after Maj. Bad Guy.
--Randomly pretty picture of KITT, with Goon1 and Goon2 in the background. Why they ran toward a solid cement wall in their bid to escape beggars the imagination. Or possibly buggers it. That must be why they are mere goons.
--KITT's method of stopping the Goon Squad is...well...there's a reason why illeryana and I have been calling this the "wiggly butts" episode. ::snort:: Unfortunately, I can't convey the full effect in a mere screencap. Because they're *squirming* and wriggling and it's just hysterical.
--This is a pretty tasty scene because you can sort of see the Green Beret coming out in Michael. Major Bad Guy runs into the bunker and pulls a rifle out of a box. Conveniently for him there's a loaded clip *right there*. Not so conveniently for Bad Guy, Michael gets there before he can bring the weapon to bear and he winds out pinned to the wall with a rifle across his throat.
--Michael demands to know where Robin is. Maj. Bad Guy lies through his teeth and denies knowing where she is, then says Michael's going to be in all kind of trouble for accosting army personnel and destroying government property. I'm not sure what government property he thinks Michael's destroyed. Maybe Michael damaged the rifle holding it up against Bad Guy's windpipe like that.
--Unlike the heroes of so very many of the shows I love, Michael can handle a rifle in a convincing manner. It's refreshing. :D
--He then proceeds to, with completely steely confidence (and steely balls) threaten Major Bad Guy with one of the tactical nukes. Not threatening to blow it up, because that would be a) dumb b) evil and c) likely not easily possible, he just threatens to open the housing and let a little radiation leak out. I have no idea how feasible that is, but the beauty of the scene is that it doesn't matter. Because Michael *totally* sells it. And he's holding the damn bomb while he's doing it. Like I said, this is where the Green Beret shows.
--Once he's gotten the information he wants from Major Bad Guy, he *tosses* him the nuke and locks him into the ammo bunker.
--Wiggly butts! (Why the hell the one in the background doesn't run away is another thing that buggers the imagination. ::sighs:: Goons. ::facepalm:: If I'm ever an evil overlord, I swear I will have an intelligence test as part of my personnel recruiting procedures.)
--Michael locks Sgt. Skeezer and the Goon Boys into the bunker as well. Then, to my utter delight, he *leaves* the rifle behind, propped up in the doorway.
--Off to the firing range to rescue Robin. But the test firing is starting, with lots of stock footage of bombs and artillery and explosions.
--Not surprisingly, Robin's freaking out.
--Michael and KITT bust right through the "danger no admittance" sign at the entrance to the test range, but it doesn't make for a good screencap (blurry) so you'll just have to trust me that it looks cool. :D
--I love the purring noise KITT's engine makes. :D Unfortunately, I can't screencap *sounds*, so you get a picture instead.
--Why is Michael steering if they're in pursuit mode? Maybe pursuit doesn't always mean that KITT's driving.
--And now we find out that General Duncton's a bad guy too. ::sighs:: And he's sort of like a father to Robin. Feh. As if that weren't bad enough, Duncton tells the artillery crews that KITT's an unmanned drone and that the gun-grew that schmeisses him will get a three-day pass.
--"KITT! They're still shooting at us!" "Thank you, Michael, but I noticed that myself." Hee!
--At least if they're shooting at KITT, they're not still shooting at the tank Robin's in. That's something. "Can you take a direct hit, KITT?" "I don't think we want to find that out." God I love KITT!
--Another nice shot of KITT's early season 1 voice panel. And see, they're in pursuit mode now. :D
--And General Duncton has the crews fire three heat-seeking rockets. So to distract the rockets from the heat of KITT's engine they set fire to a bush? Quoi? ::scratches head:: Moving on...
--Wee little bit of automotive porn. Just a neat shot of KITT's scanner. :D
--I see where their budget went--to lots and lots of stock footage of artillery. :D
--Why is Robin acting like she's never been in KITT before? "Is this a car, or a spaceship?" Michael: "A little bit of both."
--I'm eliding over lots and lots of KITT skidding around through dust and dried grass with explosions all around. One cool cap to make the point. :D
--I bet Bonnie will be un-pleased with the carbon scoring from KITT having been on fire, however briefly.
--Michael disables an armored personnel carrier of some sort with a flame-thrower. Apparently KITT's got a *really* hot flamethrower, which would account for it distracting the heat seeking missles too. Erm. Yeah. Moving on...
--And Robin finds out that Duncton, her father's *friend* and a sort of semi-father-figure to her is a Bad Guy and had her father killed. Poor Robin.
--I don't know if Lieutenants are actually allowed to rip the insignia off dishonored Generals, but in the heat of the moment it's a nice gesture.
--Devon: "Ah, yes, a typical Michael Knight situation. Total confusion. Mass destruction. All in a good cause, of course." He's on a bit of a rant. while he's ranting, I'm just going to sit over here in the corner and admire Michael in that pink shirt. (And wonder what the hell Devon's ranting about--there was no mass destruction, except of the stuff on the *target range* that was supposed to be destroyed. And that rifle Michael apparently broke over Maj. Bad Guy's trachea.)
--And Major Raney reappears, still being awfully cool. "All the top brass at the post are in the stockade and I find myself the acting commander."
--The White House calls to speak to a representative of the Foundation who can address what happened at the base and Devon proceeds to be unctuous, as only Devon can.
--Sex project update: Since this is about as physically close as Robin and Michael *ever* get to each other, I'm going to have to say, Michael's not making any time with her either.
--And Michael ends the episode driving off in KITT with Devon, arguing over expenses.
Final Verdict: No nookie. Robin seems to be a bit of a very genteel flirt, and that's visible between them occasionally, but as soon as there was a *case*, his interest in her basically got completely subsumed by his interest in the case. I think Michael gravitates toward helping damsels in distress not because he's a lech or a player, but because he likes women and likes to be helpful to them. He's very gentlemanly (witness the opening of car doors). But I'm still gathering data.
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This installment of the MKSP is going to be much more than just an assessment of Michael's sex life, though I will be sure to cover that burning question as well. This will be a much more comprehensive post-o-squee, with loads and loads of screencaps, and bits of dialogue, and things I liked (or didn't). I won't be doing episode notes like this for all of the episodes, but I really enjoy this one.
Also, since there are some folks here who've never read my episode notes before a note in warning/explanation: Basically everything behind the cut is a spoiler (if you care) but there's almost no explanation of anything. So if you don't remember the details, some of the comments are just going to be confusing.
Part of why I like this episode so much is that I absolutely remember this one from when I was fifteen and watching this show when it was on the air. 25 years later, I *remembered* it. ::squee:: That was fun.
Additional note: I can't tell if my it's my computer or Livejournal being a bitch about showing all the screencaps. If you clear your cache and reload the page you *might* get them all. Or you can go here and then page forward through the gallery to see them all in order.
--One of the things I rather miss in this episode is any sort of a transition from the pilot. At the end of the pilot, Michael's fighting against letting KITT control the car, even though Michael is bleeding and not totally with it, Michael and KITT have just started communicating and being at all comfortable with each other, and we've never seen Bonnie at all (unless she was j-random background technicians in one of the scenes at the mansion). We never really see the development from that to where *this* episode starts. That's one of the things that modern TV shows do better than older ones.
--Yay!! The cool theme music! :D Good times ahead.
--I'm *deeply* in love with KITT giving Michael advice on playing car racing computer games (while KITT is driving of course). "Michael, slow down. You're going to crash." (And yay, 1982 video game controllers. Notice how good I'm being in *not* saying that KITT has a joystick. :D)
--And then Michael does in fact crash (in the video game). "Sorry Michael, that makes it forty-two to three. My favor." I'm curious about the three games that Michael won. My guess is that they were the early ones, before KITT figured it out. :D
--"KITT go to manual. We're stopping." "Really? Why? Is there a lady in the vicinity?" "How'd you know that?" "Really, Michael, you're so predictable." So they're definitely playing into the perception of Michael as a lady's man.
--Here we have Michael meeting this week's girl of the week, Lieutenant Robin Ladd. As with most nice women on this show she's wholesomely pretty. She is, at this time, having car trouble.
--Heee!! KITT's so indignant that Michael's expecting him to *tow* Robin's car. :D "Me? Michael, I was not designed to be a tow truck. I have numerous complex systems which could be adversely affected." He sounds so *offended*.
--Randomly pretty shot of KITT after they drop Robin's car off at a garage.
--Michael's describing his work as "something like insurance". Interesting. I know he never mentions working for the Foundation, but that's an interesting way to describe what he does. Not even inaccurate--it gives a sense of the skill set involved. :D
--From the pilot we know Michael has Army experience (probably extensive) so it's cute him talking to Robin, an Army brat grown up to enter the service herself. They're kind of adorable in this scene.
--"If they'd made officers like you when I was in uniform, I never would have left." Oh, Michael. If you're going to give her a line, give her a better one than *that*.
--So why did she take Michael into the base HQ? He could have just dropped her off, right.
--Why didn't the army ever notify Robin that her father was killed? That's sloppy as hell. Oh, I see it just happened. He hadn't even been buried. Got it.
--So why is Michael at Col. Ladd's funeral? I mean he just met Robin. And how much time has passed? Is it later that day or what?
--Poor Robin at her dad's funeral. (Also, where do I recognize this actress from? Was she just in every TV show made in the early 80s?)
--Part of me is getting the impression that General Duncton may have held the funeral until Robin got there, so it's later that afternoon. Though that doesn't make a heap of sense because she's getting there a week early.
--Okay, I'm really in love with the fact that Michael wore jeans (with a tie and sport coat) to the Colonel's funeral. And the moment he walks out, he loosens his tie. :D
--I also really, really love his big rodeo-style belt buckle. I love that a lot. (You can see it in the previous cap, but I'll be watching for a better one of it. You betcha.)
--Boy, I love how tall he is. He's like a head taller than Robin is. And those yummy long legs. I'm just gonna sit over here and drool a bit and maybe let my imagination wander just a skosh...
--Oh, yeah, there's an important plot point here too. Some insensitive schmucks are suggesting that Robin's dad was drunk and that's why he got in the car accident that killed him. So she asks Michael to investigate it.
--Just a random bit of yum.
--"Michael, I'm afraid I have some alarming news." "I'm sitting down." Heee! Apparently "that towing incident" damaged KITT's alpha-circuit. I love KITT. :D And they're contacting the "home office" so he can get repaired.
--Randomly yummy picture of KITT as they're trying to recreate Col. Ladd's accident.
--In the half-hour between leaving Robin after the funeral and meeting up with her again to investigate her father's accident, Michael changed his shirt, losing all of the fancy stuff he put on for the funeral. But he didn't go back to the same polo shirt he had on when they picked Robin up, that one was burgundy.
--Michael and KITT have proved that Col. Ladd couldn't have gone off the road by accident where the report says he did. Poor Robin. Not only is her dad dead, he was murdered.
--Status check on the Sex Project. At this point Michael's got a case and doesn't appear to be the least bit interested in Robin anymore. And vice versa. So far he's given her one cheezy line and that's the extent of his attraction to her.
--So they go back to the base. Robin's going to check out her dad's quarters and Michael is going to check out his office. Umm...dude, you've got no business poking around this base? How the hell are you going to manage that?
--The buttons to roll up KITT's windows are in the center armrest/console thing. That's kind of cool.
--"KITT, we've gotta find a way in there." "We, Michael? I think I would attract a great deal of attention inside that building." (And a nice picture of KITT's original voice panel, before he got the cooler one like KARR's.)
--Michael hatches a plan.
--"Michael, I detect a certain tone in your voice." "Oh? What tone is that?" "The one where you're convinced you've come up with a brilliant idea. The next thing you know, you're doing something foolhardy and I'm in my surveillance mode." "KITT." "Yes, Michael?" "Go into your surveillance mode."
--This isn't actually a terrible plan, though he fails on the implementation. Basically he bribes convinces the sandwich vendor on base to let Michael take a tray of his wares around the base to sell them away from the truck. Oh, and to pretend that Michael's his nephew. The faulty implementation is that Michael never asked his "uncle" for his *name*. ::smacks Michael::
--"If anybody asks, I'm your nephew." "You know, for another $20, I'll adopt you."
--And, of course, the first people Michael runs into are a couple of MPs, who ask for his health card, and then run him in. That would have been another good thing for him to have sorted out with the sandwich vendor.
--Heee!! One of the business cards in Michael's wallet is for "Swedish Massage, while you wait". Oh, yes, *please*! I'll sign up for that! ::fans self::
--At least the nephew pre-arrangement works for him. :D
--Oh, how convenient, the head of the MPs, Major Raney, has the file about Col. Ladd's death on his desk and Michael's able to scoober it right out from under the noses of the two MPs who took him in. Raney will reappear, but the two candy-bar stealing MPs won't.
--Randomly pretty picture, because I've been *very* good and restrained so far this week. :D
--One of the Bad Guys just referred to Michael as "Lt. Ladd's civilian". Hee! :D
--Okay, so he and Robin went out to some greasy dive for dinner and apparently didn't discuss the case over it, because on the way out Michael suggests they should compare notes. Which they do on the way back to the base. (Apologies for the dark screencap. It's night.)
--"I sort of borrowed a file from the Military Police..."
--Yum!! ::fans self::
--He's so *nice*!! He just opened the car door for her and helped her out of the car! That's so sweet!
--Robin's calling a halt to the case because they haven't found anything conclusive. Michael suggests that they sleep on it (separately, it's very clear, he mentions his hotel by name), and, if no inspiration comes to them overnight they'll call an end to the investigation in the morning.
--Robin's awfully cute. And being terribly *functional* for a woman who suddenly and shockingly lost her beloved father. But maybe the reaction will settle in once the case is solved and she's getting into her normal life.
--Okay, that was a kind of cute little look they just gave each other. There might have been a bit of a spark there.
--Heee! KITT's damaged alpha-circuit took out the radio. I think he's just being pissy. :D
--The bad guys are trying to run KITT off the road. "Michael, I believe as usual you may have attracted the attention of some highly homicidal personalities."
--Michael and KITT run the bad guys off the road instead, and break their machine gun. :D
--Of course she's also sort of flirting with the sort-of-like-a-father-to-her General Duncton, so maybe that's just Robin's way with men she's comfortable with.
--Mmm!!
--Having determined that someone was trying to kill him, Michael convinces Robin that it's not time to abandon the case yet. They look at a map of the base and determine that Col. Ladd must have been coming from "munitions".
--Robin: "Michael, you can't go in there." Michael: "Of course not. It's still daytime."
--That threw Robin for a bit of a loop.
--Eeee!! First shot ever of KITT driving into the semi, though they hadn't quite perfected the move yet (the semi's not moving, which is part of what makes that so dang cool). And obviously the Foundation just got this rig, because it doesn't have the spiffy black and gold paint job yet. But still!!
--Bonnie and Devon. Early in the first season there's a sort of adversarial relationship between Michael and these two. Fortunately it does eventually go away.
--Bonnie's made of pure Grade A awesome. She gets a bit titchy with Michael sometimes because, well, KITT's her baby and Michael sometimes gets him hurt (like the broken alpha-circuit), but it's never really *serious*.
--Bonnie deserves special mention in the Sex Project, though she's not a Girl of the Week, because Michael does some flirting with her, though it never really goes anywhere. This is actually one of the areas where I'm quite impressed with and fond of this show--there's enough UST there that the Michael/Bonnie shippers have room to play, but not so much that one has to deal with it if one wants to put *either* of them with someone else. If only TPTB over at Leverage could hit that same balance with Sophie and Nate. My personal reading of canon is that they never do have sex or a relationship or anything, but I wouldn't have a problem with a story that suggested they had a relationship (of probably brief duration), and parted amicably.
--KITT's scanner. :D
--I love this scene!! KITT: "It's my alpha-circuit, Bonnie." Bonnie: "Your alpha-circuit? KITT, the only way you could damage that is to do something stupid like...towing another car. Right?" KITT: "Bonnie, no comment." Michael: "You're one in a million, pal." KITT: "I know." Eeee!! KITT's covering for Michael! :D
--One of minor themes so far this episode is that Michael and KITT have a case that they're *supposed* to be working on and they've ditched it to help out Robin. Devon is not pleased. "Devon, someone tried to kill me last night." "I have an alibi."
--Gosh Bonnie's cute. And she really does have some sort of fantastic superpower. I realize she's a "technician" not a "mechanic", but you'd think she'd at least have gotten *road dust* on her cute white jumpsuit.
--It's night now, so Michael's breaking into the ammunition bunker.
--Did the Army ever really develop battlefield tactical nukes that could be fired from the same artillery, erm, nugs (perhaps even an 04 WW nug, to totally jump fandoms here, and I wonder if anyone will get that reference) as armor piercing or anti-tank rounds?
--While Michael's snooping around in the ammunition bunker, Robin's finding something horrible on the computer.
--And Michael finds the blue paint. It's a clue! The Bad Guys (very very bad guys) are re-painting the battlefield tactical nukes so that they're color coded to look like armor piercing rounds. He's pretty horrified too.
--Robin, being a nice Army girl, takes her horrible information from the computer to Major Bad Guy, sitting in General Duncton's desk. And he promptly puts her under arrest and says that her father didn't know when to keep his eyes closed either.
--Fortunately Robin's assistant, Webb, sees her getting taken away by Sgt. Skeezer in an MP jeep. This becomes important later on.
--Poor Robin is locked into a *tank* with a big white X on it on the Ordinance Testing Field.
--Apparently they spent all of this episode's budget on the semi, because they didn't have $5 leftover for a set of army-esque stencils to paint this sign. Or, you know, even $1 for a ruler to make sure all the letters were the same height and the words lined up right. Hee!
--The next morning, Michael finds out that Robin's been taken off in an MP jeep (yay, Webb) and goes to Major Raney (remember him, the head of the MPs, I said he'd be back) to ask why. Raney's actually a pretty good guy, so here, have a picture. :D
--There must be a special parking space with KITT's name on it, because this is the same one they had the previous day as well. And a nice picture of KITT. :D
--Okay, so having found out that the person who took Robin away was with "munitions", Michael heads straight for the Ammunition Bunker again. There are bad guys loading a truck with the tactical nukes faked to look like armor piercing rounds. Two grunts (their nametags probably say Goon1 and Goon2) break in one direction and Maj. Bad Guy runs into the bunker. Michael sends KITT to stop Goon1 and Goon2 and goes after Maj. Bad Guy.
--Randomly pretty picture of KITT, with Goon1 and Goon2 in the background. Why they ran toward a solid cement wall in their bid to escape beggars the imagination. Or possibly buggers it. That must be why they are mere goons.
--KITT's method of stopping the Goon Squad is...well...there's a reason why illeryana and I have been calling this the "wiggly butts" episode. ::snort:: Unfortunately, I can't convey the full effect in a mere screencap. Because they're *squirming* and wriggling and it's just hysterical.
--This is a pretty tasty scene because you can sort of see the Green Beret coming out in Michael. Major Bad Guy runs into the bunker and pulls a rifle out of a box. Conveniently for him there's a loaded clip *right there*. Not so conveniently for Bad Guy, Michael gets there before he can bring the weapon to bear and he winds out pinned to the wall with a rifle across his throat.
--Michael demands to know where Robin is. Maj. Bad Guy lies through his teeth and denies knowing where she is, then says Michael's going to be in all kind of trouble for accosting army personnel and destroying government property. I'm not sure what government property he thinks Michael's destroyed. Maybe Michael damaged the rifle holding it up against Bad Guy's windpipe like that.
--Unlike the heroes of so very many of the shows I love, Michael can handle a rifle in a convincing manner. It's refreshing. :D
--He then proceeds to, with completely steely confidence (and steely balls) threaten Major Bad Guy with one of the tactical nukes. Not threatening to blow it up, because that would be a) dumb b) evil and c) likely not easily possible, he just threatens to open the housing and let a little radiation leak out. I have no idea how feasible that is, but the beauty of the scene is that it doesn't matter. Because Michael *totally* sells it. And he's holding the damn bomb while he's doing it. Like I said, this is where the Green Beret shows.
--Once he's gotten the information he wants from Major Bad Guy, he *tosses* him the nuke and locks him into the ammo bunker.
--Wiggly butts! (Why the hell the one in the background doesn't run away is another thing that buggers the imagination. ::sighs:: Goons. ::facepalm:: If I'm ever an evil overlord, I swear I will have an intelligence test as part of my personnel recruiting procedures.)
--Michael locks Sgt. Skeezer and the Goon Boys into the bunker as well. Then, to my utter delight, he *leaves* the rifle behind, propped up in the doorway.
--Off to the firing range to rescue Robin. But the test firing is starting, with lots of stock footage of bombs and artillery and explosions.
--Not surprisingly, Robin's freaking out.
--Michael and KITT bust right through the "danger no admittance" sign at the entrance to the test range, but it doesn't make for a good screencap (blurry) so you'll just have to trust me that it looks cool. :D
--I love the purring noise KITT's engine makes. :D Unfortunately, I can't screencap *sounds*, so you get a picture instead.
--Why is Michael steering if they're in pursuit mode? Maybe pursuit doesn't always mean that KITT's driving.
--And now we find out that General Duncton's a bad guy too. ::sighs:: And he's sort of like a father to Robin. Feh. As if that weren't bad enough, Duncton tells the artillery crews that KITT's an unmanned drone and that the gun-grew that schmeisses him will get a three-day pass.
--"KITT! They're still shooting at us!" "Thank you, Michael, but I noticed that myself." Hee!
--At least if they're shooting at KITT, they're not still shooting at the tank Robin's in. That's something. "Can you take a direct hit, KITT?" "I don't think we want to find that out." God I love KITT!
--Another nice shot of KITT's early season 1 voice panel. And see, they're in pursuit mode now. :D
--And General Duncton has the crews fire three heat-seeking rockets. So to distract the rockets from the heat of KITT's engine they set fire to a bush? Quoi? ::scratches head:: Moving on...
--Wee little bit of automotive porn. Just a neat shot of KITT's scanner. :D
--I see where their budget went--to lots and lots of stock footage of artillery. :D
--Why is Robin acting like she's never been in KITT before? "Is this a car, or a spaceship?" Michael: "A little bit of both."
--I'm eliding over lots and lots of KITT skidding around through dust and dried grass with explosions all around. One cool cap to make the point. :D
--I bet Bonnie will be un-pleased with the carbon scoring from KITT having been on fire, however briefly.
--Michael disables an armored personnel carrier of some sort with a flame-thrower. Apparently KITT's got a *really* hot flamethrower, which would account for it distracting the heat seeking missles too. Erm. Yeah. Moving on...
--And Robin finds out that Duncton, her father's *friend* and a sort of semi-father-figure to her is a Bad Guy and had her father killed. Poor Robin.
--I don't know if Lieutenants are actually allowed to rip the insignia off dishonored Generals, but in the heat of the moment it's a nice gesture.
--Devon: "Ah, yes, a typical Michael Knight situation. Total confusion. Mass destruction. All in a good cause, of course." He's on a bit of a rant. while he's ranting, I'm just going to sit over here in the corner and admire Michael in that pink shirt. (And wonder what the hell Devon's ranting about--there was no mass destruction, except of the stuff on the *target range* that was supposed to be destroyed. And that rifle Michael apparently broke over Maj. Bad Guy's trachea.)
--And Major Raney reappears, still being awfully cool. "All the top brass at the post are in the stockade and I find myself the acting commander."
--The White House calls to speak to a representative of the Foundation who can address what happened at the base and Devon proceeds to be unctuous, as only Devon can.
--Sex project update: Since this is about as physically close as Robin and Michael *ever* get to each other, I'm going to have to say, Michael's not making any time with her either.
--And Michael ends the episode driving off in KITT with Devon, arguing over expenses.
Final Verdict: No nookie. Robin seems to be a bit of a very genteel flirt, and that's visible between them occasionally, but as soon as there was a *case*, his interest in her basically got completely subsumed by his interest in the case. I think Michael gravitates toward helping damsels in distress not because he's a lech or a player, but because he likes women and likes to be helpful to them. He's very gentlemanly (witness the opening of car doors). But I'm still gathering data.
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