At least they didn't call it "Dark and Stormy Knight." ...Just jinxed that, didn't I?
This episode is honestly the first episode that's made me excited for this new Knight Rider. It revealed a lot about some origins and, for once, I feel like they're going in the right direction. The cute beginnings of this ep, I liked. Proof that the people in the SSC are people. Billy was trying so hard as Captain Jack - unfortunately, he just doesn't have the right amount of cool. Zoe as a cheerleader was... maybe unfortunately believable. There's something about her hair that reminds me of the Fashion Club from Daria. But the best was Katie and Lisa as Pixar lamps. I squeed so hard when I saw that. The note of Charles having built a Thing? That was a nice hearkening back to the pilot, with all of the little robospiders that were wandering around his lab.
Mike's prank was interesting, and more sophisticated than I would've given him credit for. I'm used to thinking of him as the brawn and not the brains. Most of the time he acts like the brawn more than the brains. I'll forever wonder if Sarah helped him with that one. Speaking of, the Mike/Sarah angle is still old (I liked the snowglobe, though - I want that snowglobe), but the spider bit was fantastic. Mike's evil streak is well-suited to Halloween. Mike's mention of how you're supposed to scare your friends on Halloween made me think, though. The episode synopsis on my dish guide mentioned Kitt self-destructing. For a second, I thought that the self-destruct would be a Halloween prank from Kitt. I'm glad I was wrong. Though I have to admit I've already pulled the Kitt-as-vampire card before, it was kinda cute for Mike to mention.
Then Kitt got to try out his Halloween costume. He turned into a Barbie Mustang. There was a bit of a joke from Carrie when she saw Billy in the Captain Jack costume. "Are you trying to tell us something?" At seeing Kitt's pink stripes, it made me think that Kitt was the one trying to tell us something. (However, for the record, the Barbie Mustang look is actually the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Mustang, and I fully support that cause.)
Now, I remember the 'next week on Knight Rider' thing from last time. They mentioned someone at the SSC would die. I'd like to say I wasn't surprised by them offing a redshirt-equivalent, but unfortunately, I was expecting it. They wouldn't kill an actual team character, no matter how much I think a few of them could be happily offed with no ill effects.
Sarah does know some things. Like always leaving a way in - that's just smart programming for a situation just like this. But in my opinion, that's only a smart move when your system doesn't talk to you on a daily basis. Graiman stood up for Kitt's rights earlier in the series - first episode, in fact - but now to think that there is a back door? No wonder Kitt mentioned being betrayed. It didn't give me an extra reason to dislike Sarah, but it did give me a reason to look oddly at Charles. He keeps going back and forth on my Like/Dislike meter and is now hovering somewhere in the middle. I did have a moment where I actually liked Sarah, though, when she suggested they ask Charles about said backdoor. It was probably the first time I've actually liked her in all of these eps. She seemed less of Miss Mary Sue and more of a person. I had another moment where I disliked Mike, though, as he helped Sarah evade Kitt's questions.
Graiman's backdoor into Kitt is indeed there. And that he's implanted an unaffectable self-destruct doesn't sit right with me. At least Graiman has revealed he worked on Karr instead of on the original Kitt (who still went unmentioned, and that's made me even more curious about just what role the Two-Thousand plays in this universe). I can understand him not wanting another Karr on his hands, but a self-destruct program doesn't seem like the right way to do it, especially not the way he's got it implemented here. ...Oh wait, that's me and real world physics again. Just like Billy's extracting soundwaves with the sci-fi gun microphone of doom.
Then, when asked, Kitt actually defends himself against Graiman. To me, this is a huge development. Standing up for himself, showing that he doesn't want to lose himself, doesn't want his memories to be cold data in someone else's head. I wonder about that backup neural net, but it's great to see Kitt behaving like a character. He's only willing to release his files when Mike tells him he'll be taken care of, and even then he asks Mike, "What is it like not remembering?"
The identification of Carrie's voice as the shooter was a surprise, though she usually is the first one with her hand on her gun, and the display of her having to crouch to fire was spurious at best. I don't know anyone who drops five inches to fire a gun at close range. It says something about how shaken everyone was that they accepted this reasoning without really thinking. Not to mention that they never just scanned Carrie's hand to try to shut down the self-destruct until after the fire incident.
Under extreme duress, Kitt finally breaks and begins using contractions, admits to worry, admits to having favourite memories - he becomes a he instead of an it after so long. But at last it's admitted that Kitt is based on Karr, and that Karr is still around. I'm not much on the wonky forms they show for him, but I'm actually glad to see the old bastard still kicking around, and in a pleasant badguy mode. It's a nice note that Karr gets to trigger memories in Mike - something I'd thought of a few weeks back, actually. Makes me wonder if the producers are monitoring my AIM conversations. I did want to see that all of this was somehow Karr's plan. To be left wanting with a dead secret operative was... Well, I was left wanting, but it does give them a nice open end to fill in at a later date. Karr killing seven people, though? The Karr in this series has been slacking.
Our dead operative seemed to know something on Torres, however. Asking who she worked for only got him the response, "You might want to ask yourself the same question." Dammit, he'll be a delicious badguy later, I just know it. So many questions. Was she going after Prometheus info? What does Karr have to do with all this? Was she with Black River? Where is the original Kitt?
As far as characterisation, this episode was really nice, but especially for Kitt. He manages to snark both Mike and Sarah in this episode. First, he calls them on the flirtation - which it's about time someone did - then he gives Sarah quite a burn after she said that Mike didn't make good choices on girlfriends - "At one time, his choice was you." I cheered. Then when Mike told him to calculate faster after he'd taken the time to figure out the best place to fire his grappling hook, Kitt burned Mike a good one as well. "Are you injured?" he asked. "No." "Then I calculated quickly enough."
A lot of the lines made me happy this week, especially some of the closing lines. "Try almost blowing up." I hope they take that particular program out. Yes, it sure is one way to keep Kitt from turning into a renegade, like Karr seems to be, but it reminds me of TKR's cars all being built with weaknesses because of what KRO had done. I keep finding hints of TKR in this new series. At least they got some good characterisation in on this ep, unlike many of the others.
Next week's ep was touted to be Kitt-centric. Let's hope they take the good from this ep into that one.
Mike's prank was interesting, and more sophisticated than I would've given him credit for. I'm used to thinking of him as the brawn and not the brains. Most of the time he acts like the brawn more than the brains. I'll forever wonder if Sarah helped him with that one. Speaking of, the Mike/Sarah angle is still old (I liked the snowglobe, though - I want that snowglobe), but the spider bit was fantastic. Mike's evil streak is well-suited to Halloween. Mike's mention of how you're supposed to scare your friends on Halloween made me think, though. The episode synopsis on my dish guide mentioned Kitt self-destructing. For a second, I thought that the self-destruct would be a Halloween prank from Kitt. I'm glad I was wrong. Though I have to admit I've already pulled the Kitt-as-vampire card before, it was kinda cute for Mike to mention.
Then Kitt got to try out his Halloween costume. He turned into a Barbie Mustang. There was a bit of a joke from Carrie when she saw Billy in the Captain Jack costume. "Are you trying to tell us something?" At seeing Kitt's pink stripes, it made me think that Kitt was the one trying to tell us something. (However, for the record, the Barbie Mustang look is actually the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Mustang, and I fully support that cause.)
Now, I remember the 'next week on Knight Rider' thing from last time. They mentioned someone at the SSC would die. I'd like to say I wasn't surprised by them offing a redshirt-equivalent, but unfortunately, I was expecting it. They wouldn't kill an actual team character, no matter how much I think a few of them could be happily offed with no ill effects.
Sarah does know some things. Like always leaving a way in - that's just smart programming for a situation just like this. But in my opinion, that's only a smart move when your system doesn't talk to you on a daily basis. Graiman stood up for Kitt's rights earlier in the series - first episode, in fact - but now to think that there is a back door? No wonder Kitt mentioned being betrayed. It didn't give me an extra reason to dislike Sarah, but it did give me a reason to look oddly at Charles. He keeps going back and forth on my Like/Dislike meter and is now hovering somewhere in the middle. I did have a moment where I actually liked Sarah, though, when she suggested they ask Charles about said backdoor. It was probably the first time I've actually liked her in all of these eps. She seemed less of Miss Mary Sue and more of a person. I had another moment where I disliked Mike, though, as he helped Sarah evade Kitt's questions.
Graiman's backdoor into Kitt is indeed there. And that he's implanted an unaffectable self-destruct doesn't sit right with me. At least Graiman has revealed he worked on Karr instead of on the original Kitt (who still went unmentioned, and that's made me even more curious about just what role the Two-Thousand plays in this universe). I can understand him not wanting another Karr on his hands, but a self-destruct program doesn't seem like the right way to do it, especially not the way he's got it implemented here. ...Oh wait, that's me and real world physics again. Just like Billy's extracting soundwaves with the sci-fi gun microphone of doom.
Then, when asked, Kitt actually defends himself against Graiman. To me, this is a huge development. Standing up for himself, showing that he doesn't want to lose himself, doesn't want his memories to be cold data in someone else's head. I wonder about that backup neural net, but it's great to see Kitt behaving like a character. He's only willing to release his files when Mike tells him he'll be taken care of, and even then he asks Mike, "What is it like not remembering?"
The identification of Carrie's voice as the shooter was a surprise, though she usually is the first one with her hand on her gun, and the display of her having to crouch to fire was spurious at best. I don't know anyone who drops five inches to fire a gun at close range. It says something about how shaken everyone was that they accepted this reasoning without really thinking. Not to mention that they never just scanned Carrie's hand to try to shut down the self-destruct until after the fire incident.
Under extreme duress, Kitt finally breaks and begins using contractions, admits to worry, admits to having favourite memories - he becomes a he instead of an it after so long. But at last it's admitted that Kitt is based on Karr, and that Karr is still around. I'm not much on the wonky forms they show for him, but I'm actually glad to see the old bastard still kicking around, and in a pleasant badguy mode. It's a nice note that Karr gets to trigger memories in Mike - something I'd thought of a few weeks back, actually. Makes me wonder if the producers are monitoring my AIM conversations. I did want to see that all of this was somehow Karr's plan. To be left wanting with a dead secret operative was... Well, I was left wanting, but it does give them a nice open end to fill in at a later date. Karr killing seven people, though? The Karr in this series has been slacking.
Our dead operative seemed to know something on Torres, however. Asking who she worked for only got him the response, "You might want to ask yourself the same question." Dammit, he'll be a delicious badguy later, I just know it. So many questions. Was she going after Prometheus info? What does Karr have to do with all this? Was she with Black River? Where is the original Kitt?
As far as characterisation, this episode was really nice, but especially for Kitt. He manages to snark both Mike and Sarah in this episode. First, he calls them on the flirtation - which it's about time someone did - then he gives Sarah quite a burn after she said that Mike didn't make good choices on girlfriends - "At one time, his choice was you." I cheered. Then when Mike told him to calculate faster after he'd taken the time to figure out the best place to fire his grappling hook, Kitt burned Mike a good one as well. "Are you injured?" he asked. "No." "Then I calculated quickly enough."
A lot of the lines made me happy this week, especially some of the closing lines. "Try almost blowing up." I hope they take that particular program out. Yes, it sure is one way to keep Kitt from turning into a renegade, like Karr seems to be, but it reminds me of TKR's cars all being built with weaknesses because of what KRO had done. I keep finding hints of TKR in this new series. At least they got some good characterisation in on this ep, unlike many of the others.
Next week's ep was touted to be Kitt-centric. Let's hope they take the good from this ep into that one.