The General Knight Rider thread.

[Christopher]

Having ridden the Shinkansen in Japan, you have to take into consideration stops and how long it takes to increase its speed. The shorter the stops the less speed it can reach. This was my experience.

Yeah, but it would take a lot of long stops to cut the average speed by more than half, I'd think.

 

[Mr. Spook]

Jokes aside, Automan had in common what many pre-TNG series with fantastical elements had:

• An interesting sci-fi/fantasy premise. In this case, the stated inspiration was Tron (the authors themselves stated so).
• The premise was completely squandered on the most generic detective plots possible, adapted for a young audience (because it was thought that these were the viewers most interested in the fantasy/sci-fi genre).
• The characters were little more than cardboard cutouts. They were defined by a single characteristic (the nerd, the grumpy boss, the Hero, etc.).
• No interest in exploring the implications of this or that fantastic/sci-fi premise (I mean, sentient solid holograms?!?)

These shows rarely lasted more than a season. There were several reasons for this. They were, on average, more expensive than a cop show. They were, well, pretty stupid. They didn't have much appeal to an adult audience. Kids, who were their target audience, stripped away the most interesting elements and were treated to the usual cheesy cop show: "Oh no, diamond smugglers! I'm really curious to see how it ends! (Nope)."

At this point, Glen Larson seemed to be making comic book shows and series like Manimal and Automan weren't so much trying be "science fiction" as much as they were attempts to be super-hero shows.

When Larson did the horrendous Nightman, Jonathan Chase from Manimal did a crossover, putting them both in the same universe.

Larson should have stuck with straightforward crime shows, most of his fantasy series didn't have the magic.

It's weird because I genuinely had no memory of that, but it does sound familiar (and not just because Lance LeGault voiced it) I wonder if its been cut out of more recent viewings and a lot of YouTube videos?)

Presumably its either amended or removed once we get around to season 2 and Jean Bruce Scott joins the cast?)

The narration was in the first season and phased out partway though after being shortened a bit. So it's on relatively few episodes.

The narration set a darker tone for the series, but the network wanted a lighter show for the second year and by the third, Don Bellisario was gone and it was just a fairly standard action series. And Jan-Michael Vincent was whacked out of his mind every episode that last year. I can't imagine Ernest Borgnine was having a good time by then, but he was a joy to watch and they did have a nice chemistry.

Having the series on Blu Ray means I also have the insanely cheap 4th season, but I remember watching it when it aired because I loved the original series and having JMV in the premiere legitimized it.

Spoiler

Blowing up Dominic

was a cheap shot though and Stringfellow's fate was a little too vague for me. Maybe they were hoping to bring him back for a guest shot.

Maybe cut for syndication? It's quite long!

I remember seeing it on the USA prints and after it left, I didn't see the show again until the DVDs.

There were only a few orchestral holdouts, like Shirley Walker and Dennis McCarthy.

McCarthy's music for V The Finale Battle and the weekly series made me a fan of his. While he reused motifs regularly during the run, he'd use them interestingly and it became one of the best things about the weekly, which is admittedly a guilty pleasure. Rarely have I seen a concept go from such heights to great depts as quickly as V.

I was excited when I heard him in TNG but was later disappointed at how much he was forced to restrain himself. Especially since V was a main reason he was hired for TNG - or so I read.

"Greatest American Hero" was good. Had some cheese, but it was good.

I can barely watch it as it is now, the music replacement is awful - and most of the music was cover versions anyway, which is odd. My favorite episode, "Operation Spoilsport" is gutted by the replacement of "Eve of Destruction." The songs usually tied into the stories and this one was important. If they ever clear the music and pop the show on blu ray, it's a day one purchase for me.

People complain about AI slop, but I swear 80% of American TV series made in the '70s and '80s were written on autopilot. And, if it was science fiction, automatically (before TNG) it was assumed that the target audience was slightly less intelligent than average.

I do have to say, and mostly because I grew up during this period, I loved it. TV was fun. High concept adventure and over the top glitzy dramas among the more sophisticated series like Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere. In a lot of ways, the 80's were much like the 60's. A great deal of TV was pop entertainment for distraction and fun. And for me, there was always something cool on TV. During the day were reruns of classic 50's and 60's shows and at night were The A-Team, Airwolf, Miami Vice, Matt Houston, Dallas, The Dukes of Hazzard, and so on. 3 networks and a handful of syndicated stations, plus the growing cable boom. While my friends were watching MTV and movie channels, I was devouring the independent stations from Boston, Scranton-Wilkes Barre-Hazelton, and various parts of Connecticut and New Jersey. As well as new stations like MSG which needed to fill dead space with cheap reruns of old shows. TV was great fun back then.

 

[Christopher]

McCarthy's music for V The Finale Battle and the weekly series made me a fan of his. While he reused motifs regularly during the run, he'd use them interestingly and it became one of the best things about the weekly, which is admittedly a guilty pleasure. Rarely have I seen a concept go from such heights to great depts as quickly as V.

I was excited when I heard him in TNG but was later disappointed at how much he was forced to restrain himself. Especially since V was a main reason he was hired for TNG - or so I read.

McCarthy was also one of MacGyver's main composers, of course, and I preferred his work there to that of most of the other composers -- especially Ken Harrison, whose music was okay the first couple of times you heard it, but then he just kept doing the same things over and over and over and it got really tiresome. But McCarthy did some really good work in MacGyver's early seasons.

Amusingly, the first show on which I heard McCarthy's work was Enos, the short-lived, little-remembered spinoff of the kindly deputy character from The Dukes of Hazzard.

I can barely watch it as it is now, the music replacement is awful - and most of the music was cover versions anyway, which is odd. My favorite episode, "Operation Spoilsport" is gutted by the replacement of "Eve of Destruction." The songs usually tied into the stories and this one was important. If they ever clear the music and pop the show on blu ray, it's a day one purchase for me.

Oh yes, I did a Greatest American Hero rewatch for my Patreon last year, and I noticed the song substitutions. I'm not really a pop music guy, so I didn't generally notice the songs in the original that much, but "Eve of Destruction" was a very memorable and important element of "Operation: Spoilsport," enough that it stood out for me even though I wasn't previously familiar with the song; and the replacement song was pretty weak.

 

[bdub76]

Song substitutions really hurt old shows, where music was more of a thing.

If I want to rewatch Life on Mars, I have to watch it on BritBox as they have the original music whereas the physical media version has substitutions.

But I do miss good music in movies and shows. It's not happening much anymore.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

That's what made the WKRP release by Rhino/Shout! Factory so good.
They were able to license about 90% of the music used in the series, so, the episodes are relatively intact with a few minor exceptions.

 

[Owain Taggart]

From Sawyer's memo, it sounds like he felt the problem with FlashForward wasn't that it failed to capture something from the book, but that it failed to commit fully to its own premise

Yeah, that's pretty much it in a nutshell, and there lies most of my disappointment. That is what I was trying to get at. That it never was able to commit, therefore was less interesting as a result. The best I can describe is that it all felt too contemporary. I don't know if that's because they didn't quite know what to do with it as a TV show. I think the lack of commitment into the premise is echoed in how how short of a view into the future they had gone, but I see they were hoping to jump further with the second season, ie decades rather than minutes. Maybe they were hoping viewers would be engaged enough with the premise to be able to commit more to it for the following season, with the first season acting as a teaser of sorts. It's an interesting conundrum. In this case, they didn't do nearly enough with and people lost interest.

But if we're talking about TV shows about super vehicles, we can't forget...

SUPERTRAIN!!! When it was produced it was the most expensive TV series of all time!!!

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Wow. It almost looks like an early version of Snowpiercer. Except that it seemed to be going for a Love Boat type of crowd. With its disco music, I was half expecting someone to start crooning out a title tune. That disco music though!

How times have changed. Once upon a time, a series canceled after a single 24-episode season was considered a failure, but one that runs for three 8-episode seasons on a streaming platform is considered a moderate success.

No kidding! Perhaps this is why people get so unsettled and anxious while waiting out for followup seasons when shows go on a 2 year hiatus, as with low episode counts, it's not always easy to spot successes and failures.

Song substitutions really hurt old shows, where music was more of a thing.

I think it really hurts where a show or movie is trying to set a very specific tone, and sometimes the songs are selected as the lyrics reflect the situations happening on screen. I had watched something recently where it was obvious a song had been replaced, because the song it was replaced by wasn't very well integrated into the mix and felt very much at odds with everything else.

 

[Skipper]

Wow. It almost looks like an early version of Snowpiercer. Except that it seemed to be going for a Love Boat type of crowd. With its disco music, I was half expecting someone to start crooning out a title tune. That disco music though!

It was exactly like Love Boat, but on a train! And way more expensive. It is a great example of "What the heck were they thinking?!?"

 

[Owain Taggart]

It was exactly like Love Boat, but on a train! And way more expensive. It is a great example of "What the heck were they thinking?!?"

Not having seen it, I wasn't sure if I would have been totally off the mark on that. Interesting. But that's the feel I get via the titles. Can just imagine the promos: Is your life feeling derailed? Then come and take a ride on the Supertrain and get your life back on track!

The funny thing is, now I can't get the picture out of my head of a Snowpiercer-like show done in a Love Boat style. Talk about horrific.

 

[Starkers]

It was exactly like Love Boat, but on a train! And way more expensive. It is a great example of "What the heck were they thinking?!?"

Although having looked at Wikipedia it seems like half the episodes revolved around "there's a hitman on the train;"

 

[Skipper]

Not having seen it, I wasn't sure if I would have been totally off the mark on that. Interesting. But that's the feel I get via the titles. Can just imagine the promos: Is your life feeling derailed? Then come and take a ride on the Supertrain and get your life back on track!

The funny thing is, now I can't get the picture out of my head of a Snowpiercer-like show done in a Love Boat style. Talk about horrific.

I've just watched the first few minutes of the pilot (you can find the whole series on YouTube).

I have to say that the sets and the models are quite impressive, especially for a 70s TV show!

 

[Owain Taggart]

Well, it better be for something that was the most expensive TV show for its time!

 

[DarrenTR1970]

"Hop all aboard the Soooopertrain!" in his best Don Cornelius voice.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

Another one season wonder that I never watched, but I remember reading about it in Starlog magazine was "Salvage One" staring Andy Griffith as the junk yard owner who built his own rocket ship in his back yard.