The Top 5 Knight Rider Season 3 Episodes

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The third season of Knight Rider brings back Patricia McPherson as Bonnie, who was replaced in season 2 by Rebecca Holden, who played scientist and KITT mechanic/handler April. We’re never given an explanation as to why April left the Foundation for Law and Government, but we do find out, in the two-part season opener Knight of the Drones, that Bonnie originally left FLAG to do research and continue her education (she was also apparently tired of the endless crime fighting that FLAG engaged in). I definitely prefer Bonnie over April (Rebecca Holden is a fine actress and all, but she never really fit in with Hasselhoff’s Michael Knight and Edward Mulhare’s Devon Miles and her presence changed the tone of the show in the second season), but I would have liked some sort of explanation as to why April was suddenly gone. I mean, who took care of KITT between April leaving and Bonnie returning? Was it a series of faceless/nameless FLAG technicians?

The third season also has an episode, “Dead of Knight,” that doesn’t seem to be available anywhere at the moment. It isn’t on NBC’s website, it isn’t part of Starz Encore’s Knight Rider On Demand listings (I have no idea if any of the Starz Encore channels air the episode), and it never aired on the El Rey network when Knight Rider played there. The Charge channel describes the episode on its website, but I have no idea if Charge airs that episode as part of its Knight Rider package. I do believe the episode is available on the Knight Rider Complete Collection DVD set. So what’s the deal with this episode? Why is it not part of the “regular” syndication package? Is it available on the Peacock streaming service?

Honorable Mentions

• –”K.I.T.T. vs. K.A.R.R.”- Episode 6: The evil KARR (Knight Automated Roaming Robot) returns in this episode, where we find out that he didn’t “die” in the first season. We once again get some nifty car against car sequences, and KARR has a black and grey paint job, a new yellow light on the hood, and is voiced this time by Paul Frees. KARR is absolutely diabolical in this episode. You have to believe that, with the way the episode ends, had there been a fifth season of Knight Rider KARR would have come back at least one more time.
  
• –”Knight in Retreat”- Episode 20: Michael Knight goes undercover as a nuclear physicist in this episode in order to infiltrate a vacation resort that caters to scientists and whatnot. The woman that runs the resort, Bianca Morgan (the returning Ann Turkel), engages in blackmail, and Michael needs to find out what the heck happened with Bonnie’s old friend played by Don Galloway. There are some cool fight scenes in this episode, and Turkel is just diabolical here in a new character (she appeared in three episodes of season 2).
  
• 5- “Knight of the Drones” -Episodes 1 and 2: This two part season opener starts with a jail break sequence involving a radio that turns into a robot that shoots out knockout gas, a prisoner played by the Jim Brown, and a remote control car (and by that I mean a real, full sized car that’s controlled remotely, and not a “typical” remote control car) that takes Brown’s C.J. Jackson away from prison. Who wanted Jim Brown out of prison? A rich and evil woman named Margo Sheridan (Barbara Stock) and a disgruntled scientist named David Halston (Jared Martin). Sheridan and Halston plan to use Jackson, along with Evan Kim’s somewhat goofy criminal wire man Peter Wong, to tunnel into a vault in San Francisco that holds valuable materials. Jackson and Wong think the vault has money in it. There’s something else inside, something they don’t want but Halston does. Michael Knight tries to stop all of this from happening, along with the returning Bonnie (she’s pissed off that Halston, one of her scientific mentors, is a criminal *******). There are some cool chase scenes between KITT and the car Halston controls, and the cast is just insane. The Barbarian brothers, David Paul and Peter Paul, play Margo’s personal henchmen, and the immortal Al Leong and Tadashi Yama****a (yes, the Black Star Ninja hisself from American Ninja) pop in as two bad guys Michael Knight fights in an alley. And Joan Chen is in the episode, too, but I don’t remember seeing her. And the radio that turns into a robot is one of the most 1980’s things you will ever see. It’s glorious (why wasn’t this radio robot a toy?).
  
• 4-. “Knight Strike”-Episode 21 : In this episode Michael infiltrates a survivalist/gun convention after a truck full of confiscated weapons are stolen. Michael and Devon are mostly concerned about this big theft because two laser rifles were part of the confiscated weapons stash and, as we all know, if any sort of laser rifle/weapons in general fall into the wrong hands that could be big trouble. The bad guy is Lyle Jastrow, played by the great Richard Herd, and he plays Jastrow as a real piece of ****. Michael also befriends Sheila, a hitchhiker and model who sold a few guns she found in a believed abandoned truck on her way to the convention (Sheila is played by Judy Landers, who 80’s nerds will know from the John Candy-Eugene Levy action comedy Armed and Dangerous and Stewardess School. She also appeared in a season 1 episode of Knight Rider). Michael shows off his killer sniper skills in this episode. And check this out! Jack O’Halloran, of Superman II, The Hero and the Terror (Simon Moon!), and Dragnet fame (Muzz, Emil, Emil Muzz), shows up as Jastro’s main henchman, and he isn’t a crazy lunatic. He is terrifying, though, as a big guy that you don’t want to run into because he’s, well, a big guy.
  
• 3- “Buy Out” -Episode 15: In this episode, Michael is called in to investigate the mysterious death of a test driver for an armored limousine company and finds out that the death wasn’t mysterious at all. The great Clu Gulager is the bad guy in this episode, and he’s a real piece of **** as Eugene Hanson, the guy running the limo company. This episode features some very cool stunt limo driving sequences at a test track that has all sorts of hills and traps and whatnot, and there’s a whole thing where we see Gulager in a sort of tank vehicle shooting a machine gun like a maniac. Gulager’s character also finds a way to stop KITT from pursuing him (just raise the rear end of the car off the ground). Are there armored limo companies out there in real life? Was that a 1980’s thing? Gulager is the real draw in this episode. Again, he’s such a piece of **** here that it’s fun watching him be that piece of s***.
  
• 2-. “Junk Yard Dog”- Episode 14: This is another “environmental” episode of Knight Rider, with Michael and KITT taking on a big time businessman and polluter played by Ramon Bieri. The great part of the episode, though, involves KITT being pushed into an acid pool and almost destroyed. We then see Bonnie and a host of scientists and technicians try to rebuild KITT, which is difficult because KITT, essentially, loses his confidence and can’t perform the way he usually does (he has issues driving around cones, can’t jump over a wall using turbo boost, and doesn’t want to drive through a wall because, again, KITT just isn’t confident that he can do it anymore). Michael manages to bring KITT’s self-confidence back by the end of the episode, and Bieri’s sack of garbage “Acid” John Byrock gets his comeuppance, which is what you expect to see. I can say that, when I saw this episode as a kid, I was deeply concerned about KITT being able to come back because that acid bath was just terrible (check out what’s left of KITT when he’s retrieved from the acid pool). And even though I now understand how the show works and know what happens, I still get concerned about KITT when I watch the episode now. It’s messed up as hell. And kudos to Bieri for being a real ******* as Byrock. What a disgusting, disgusting human being.
  
• 1- “Knight in Disgrace”- Episode 8: This episode has Michael Knight suspended from the Foundation after he’s arrested for drugs by the police (Michael was tracking a drug dealer in new Orleans and, in the process of chasing down the guy, Michael is searched by the cops and they find drugs on him). This suspension leads to a falling out between Michael and Devon and then “forces” Michael to come under the employ of master criminal Boyd LaSalle, played by the great John Considine. We see Michael do some truly terrible things while working for LaSalle (he shoots Devon!), but it’s all a big ruse by Michael and Devon in order to infiltrate LaSalle’s organization as Devon believes LaSalle is after a a deadly nerve gas. Right up until the big reveal as to what’s going on it really seems like Michael has become a kind of bad guy working for LaSalle, and it’s kind of upsetting. Michael isn’t a total bad guy because we see him trying to help Linda (Kitty Moffat), a woman LaSalle is holding against her will, but, come on, he shoots Devon. Devon! And it’s insane how Bonnie has no idea what’s going on, and how both Michael and Devon manage to keep KITT out of the loop, too (KITT’s interactions with Michael during the “Is Michael now a criminal?” parts of the episode are unsettling). It all works out in the end, though, and Michael takes down LaSalle. Considine would appear again in the two part season 4 opener “Knight of the Juggernaut,” and LaSalle’s main henchman, played by modern horror legend Ken Foree, would also appear again season 4 as a boxer. Very cool stuff.