{"id":2171,"date":"2012-11-03T16:14:03","date_gmt":"2012-11-04T00:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.screencuisine.net\/?p=2171"},"modified":"2012-11-03T16:36:06","modified_gmt":"2012-11-04T00:36:06","slug":"knight-of-the-phoenix-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.screencuisine.net\/screencuisine\/television\/knight-of-the-phoenix-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Knight of the Phoenix, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Season 1, Episode 2: Knight of the Phoenix, Part 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

How can we tell Knight Rider was made in the early 1980’s? When Michael escorts a waitress to a demolition derby, and her young son Buddy immediately disappears, no one is worried. “He’ll turn up,” Michael says, showing off his crack investigative skills by turning his head slightly to the left for one second to look around. Such an innocent, carefree decade, when a young boy could wander away at a crowded auto race and nobody immediately jumped to the conclusion that he’d been abducted\/run over.<\/p>\n

Another sign of the 80’s: Michael often has the sleeves of his leather jacket pushed up to mid-forearm.<\/p>\n

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We did this with our blazers and sport coats, too. God, we were terrible.<\/p><\/div>\n

Anyway, in Part 2 of the series premiere, Michael Knight and KITT are hot on the trail of a gang of evil Silicon Valley masterminds who brutally murder cops, callously commit acts of industrial espionage, and fiendishly sponsor demolition derbies for charity. Michael and KITT have entered the race and Buddy, the irascible scamp that he is, has stowed away in KITT’s back seat and pops up mid-derby. KITT finally starts pulling his weight as a super-science car by driving on two wheels, which has the strange scientific side-effect of making Michael suddenly appear to be a heavyset middle-aged stunt driver wearing a giant black wig over a helmet.<\/p>\n

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Buddy, meanwhile, has turned into a mannequin who is, inexplicably, also wearing a giant black wig<\/p><\/div>\n

More of KITT’s science powers are revealed during the derby, like oil slicks and smoke screens, plus the turbo boost (though it’s not called the turbo boost yet) which allows him to launch himself through the air as if flying off a ramp. All of the other cars get smashed up, Michael wins the race, and he tells the evil Tanya (the woman who shot him) that he’s interested in selling his science car, hoping to lure her into a trap. Tanya discusses it with her evil partner, and they agree that, yeah, Michael is definitely a cop.<\/p>\n

Michael stops to use a pay phone (80’s!) to call Devon Miles, and the comical hoodlums from Part 1 show up and steal KITT. KITT drives them to a police station, where he demonstrates yet another power, the ability to throw ethnic caricatures out of himself using slide-whistle technology.<\/p>\n