The Corner Penthouse

Universal Pictures recently released the Knight Rider: The Complete Series 4K UHD. Read on to find out more about it...

[ SYNOPSIS ]

David Hasselhoff is charismatic crimefighter Michael Knight, the driver of the world's most dynamic, high-tech talking car, K.I.T.T. As this brave duo take on criminals, crooks and those eager to exploit K.I.T.T.'s impressive technology for their own evil purposes, you'll be blown away by their explosive adventures that set the standard for all TV action series to come.

[ EPISODES ]

The 21-disc set includes all 85 episodes of the 1982-1986 four-season NBC series. Each episode runs about 48 minutes. Aside from the pilot, the double-length episodes are shown in their edited two-part syndicated versions (also confirmed here). According to Cereal At Midnight (also confirmed here), these are the only instances of music replacement:

• SEASON 1: Good Day at White Rock - Jimmy Buffett's "Our Day Will Come".(?)
• SEASON 1: Give Me Liberty... or Give Me Death - John Mellencamp's "Hurts So Good" (replaced with generic music in a montage).
• SEASON 3: Knight of the Drones - Prince's "Little Red Corvette" (girls dance to silence).
• SEASON 3: Dead of Knight - Prince's "When Doves Cry" (girl dances to silence).

KR Historians confirms that in the Season 2 episode White-Line Warriors, both Prince's "Little Red Corvette" (in a club scene) and John Mellencamp's "Crumbling Down" are present.

[ SPECIFICATIONS ]

The show is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The show is Not Rated. Audio languages include English. Subtitle languages include English SDH. I have a modest 43" 4K television, so the picture quality looks fine to me. Other reviewers have noticed that the quality isn't so good due to more episodes being crammed onto a 100GB disc than rightfully should be.

[ SPECIAL FEATURES ]

All of the special features below can be found on the respective 4K UHD discs. All of this content originally appeared on the DVDs 20 years ago and is in standard definition; except for "Behind the Wheel", which is new and in high definition. Note that what I call "Season 4, Disc 6" is the Bonus Disc, which is a regular Blu-ray.

• SEASON 1, DISC 1: Audio Commentary on "Knight of the Phoenix 1&2" - with David Hasselhoff and Glen Larson.
• SEASON 1, DISC 5: Knight Moves (6:07) - Focuses on the stunt work, and how they managed to get the car to do what it could do.
• SEASON 1, DISC 5: Knight Sounds (6:37) - A look at the music, with most of the focus put on the iconic theme song.
• SEASON 1, DISC 5: Knight Rider: Under the Hood (15:51) - A well-rounded retrospective that looks back on the series run through interviews with David Hasslehoff, Glen Larson, and a few others.
• SEASON 1, DISC 5: Photo Gallery - Black and white behind the scenes production stills.
• SEASON 1, DISC 5: Blueprints Gallery - A gallery of blueprints for the car, the truck, and some of the other hardware.
• SEASON 3, DISC 5: The Great '80s TV Flashback (29:01) - A clip-heavy look back at the Universal television shows that were popular during the 1980s, which includes Knight Rider.
• SEASON 4, DISC 5: Knight Rider 2000 (1:34:44) - In this 1991 made for TV movie, Michael Knight (David Hasselhoff) is called out of retirement to fight crime in Seattle, where things are getting worse by the day. KITT 2000 has been dismantled and sold for scrap parts, but with some help from Devon (Edward Mulhare), they're able to rebuild KITT into Michael's fancy '57 Chevy. He teams up with Officer Shawn McCormick (Susan Norman) to clean up the streets of Seattle while the Knight Organization begins work on a new car.
• SEASON 4, DISC 6: Knight Rider: Behind the Wheel (1:01:00) - A new 2025 feature-length documentary that looks back on the series.

[ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ]

No digital copy code voucher is included. All four seasons and the TV movie are stored in 4 individual black cases, which are placed in a side-loading slipcase. Each disc is on its own page. There is no episode guide, but episodes are listed on the disc faces. For the sake of consistency, six-disc cases are used for all seasons, even though the first three only have five discs. (The first disc space is empty.) That aside, this is the perfect way to release a TV series. I wish more studios would package their sets like this, instead of the clumsy "all discs in one thick case stacked on top of each other" garbage case.

[ NOTES ]

Knight Rider: The Complete Series is available on 4K UHD (Universal), Blu-ray (Mill Creek) (no extras, but almost all complete eps), and DVD (Universal). German distributor Turbine also released a region-free Blu-ray set (also sold directly) that is supposedly uncut, with all of the original music, has both TV movies, the Team Knight Rider series, all of the Universal extras, and even more extras! I can't personally confirm that, but this Digital Bits review seems to confirm it. Mill Creek also released a DVD set (in both hard paperboard and thin paperboard packaging), but it has no extras and is in crappy packaging, so why bother with it. The 4K UHD is RECOMMENDED, but only if you can't buy the superior Turbine Blu-ray.

This item has been provided by Universal Pictures for review on this site.