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Now, the voices in this remake? Ugh! No, no, no, no, no! All WRONG!

The voices in the old Knight Rider were just right. David’s voice was husky or manly enough (but not too deep or over the top) to be taken seriously, and William Daniels’ voice for KITT was perfect – KITT spoke like a normal human being but with just the right range and balance of personableness, emotion, vocal inflection, and calm. His voice was interesting and appealing – one that you liked to listen to every episode. William’s voice was so fitting – KITT had personality!

In contrast, they chose all the wrong people for this remake. First of all, the new Michael – his voice is so thin and high-pitched. He doesn’t sound masculine enough and you can’t take him seriously – he sounds like a little squirt – I don’t know if I want to pat him on his head and hand him his lunchbox or slap him upside his head and steal his lunch money! LOL! What made the producers choose this guy?

And the voice of the new KITT is so B-O-R-I-N-G. He sounds too reserved and computerized – not personable, emotional, and inflectional enough or in the right ways. His voice, although not stressful, is not interesting or appealing. And he has absolutely NO personality.

You’re working with subtleties of the voice when finding the right range and balance of personableness, emotion, vocal inflection, and calm, not to mention environment, when attempting to be the voice of a machine or computer; and few people can pull it off just right, without having too much or too little of each, or having them imbalanced, while being able to understand why one type of voice would be more appropriate for one environment as opposed to another, etc. William Daniels’ voice naturally accomplished this successfully in the original series. But the voice of the new KITT – whoever they hired for that – his voice is all wrong. And in some cases he has a combination of normal speech and discrete speech (similar to how we had to talk to our computers back in the day when we were using Dragon speech recognition software).

In the very first episode of this remake, both my SO and I listened to KITT for about thirty seconds, looked at each other in disgust, and turned the channel. His voice is just awful because it’s so devoid of personality! Finding people with the right voice for this I’m sure is no easy task, but I’m sorry to say that the producers of the new Knight Rider series failed here (and in other areas, too).

And KITT asking Michael if he’s a homosexual? I can’t say that’s exactly humorous. Quite frankly, I think it’s stupid, ill-fitting for the show, and disrespectful. The original KITT would never have asked questions like that – they never would’ve written that into the script.

They need to change the car (although I could deal with that), the main character, and the voice of KITT. These are the primary components that make the whole show, and IMO, they got them all wrong. In fact, the whole feel of the show overall is one that’s over-processed and doesn’t take itself seriously enough to make the viewers want to invest their time watching it. It’s like some strange amalgam of 90210, Ally McBeal, special effects, failed humor, and a talking-car that in so many ways looks too road-common on the outside but with a great wax job and a boring voice, LOL. And there’s nothing that draws you in or endears you to the characters, including KITT. Even if you could be, you may not be able to get past the voices long enough to even have the chance to connect. It just seems like one giant recipe for failure.

I don’t think this show will last long. My dislike for the show is certainly not because I’m opposed to a remake – rather, I embrace remakes! I’m a Knight Rider fan and it’s about time Knight Rider was brought back. But this show is so wrong on so many levels. Of course, no one is always right – I could be wrong here, and perhaps there’s some small sliver of a chance the show will grow on me over a bit of time, but at this point, I can’t say that it will. My instincts are pretty sharp, and because of everything I’ve mentioned above, they tell me this show won’t last long on the airwaves. Then again, who knows? Maybe I’ll be surprised… after all, “Rock of Love” is in its second season now, headed for a third, and that show is a total car wreck – but in a different way. Que sera sera.