Knight Rider: Season 01  (1982)

Theatrical Release Information:
Knight Rider: Season 01

Opening with a two-hour "TV movie" pilot (which has since been edited into two separate hour-long episodes), season one of Knight Rider affords viewers their first glimpses of former cop-turned-independent crime fighter Michael Knight (David Hasselhoff), his ill-tempered boss, Devon Miles (Edward Mulhare), and Knight's remarkable custom-made vehicle, "K.I.T.T." (Knight Industries Two Thousand), a black Trans Am armed with a near-indestructible chassis, state-of-the-art weaponry and surveillance equipment, the ability to fly through the air, and a somewhat haughty computerized "artificial intelligence," complete with a personality and the ability to speak (in the voice of actor William Daniels). Owing his life to the inventor of K.I.T.T., Michael has dedicated that life to protecting the innocent and tracking down evildoers whenever and wherever he can. During the series' first season, Knight and K.I.T.T. are occasionally aided and abetted by attractive auto mechanic Bonnie Barstow (Patricia McPherson). The opening episode explains how undercover cop Michael Long, shot in the face and left for dead, is saved and "recreated" by Wilton Knight (Richard Basehart), billionaire inventor of K.I.T.T.'s technology. Once Long has re-emerged as Michael Knight, our hero agrees to take orders from Devon Miles (Edward Mulhare), successor to the late Wilton Knight as head of Knight Industries Foundation for Law and Order. Subsequent episodes find Michael and his faithful vehicle foiling a gang of motorcycle punks, exposing a murderous saboteur at an auto daredevil show, protecting a political candidate from assassins, helping an amnesiac girl recall the identity of a hired killer, rescuing a nosy female reporter from crooked race-car promoters, solving a series of murders in a MENSA-type club for geniuses, and matching wits with a private eye who prefers the "old reliable" methods to Michael's computer-dominated procedures. ~ All Movie Guide