Knight Rider (UK)

I had mixed feelings when reviewing this disc. Firstly, it`s great to see this series finally in a decent format and because of Universal`s transatlantic parentage and the fact that preserving the catalogue with a view to future home entertainment was far more in the minds of execs back in the `80s over there, we have an absolutely fantastic digital master as source material. I understand much of the TV catalogue was remastered fairly recently to preserve these shows for the foreseeable future. The picture quality is superb and the colour balance in general excellent. It really does look better than when originally viewed on TV back in 1982. Similarly the sound track is crisp and detailed although not in stereo as the packaging would have you think. Knight Rider was only recorded in stereo in the last season. I know this for a fact as I worked on the recent soundtrack album with the show`s composer and he confirmed this. Also the second volume DVD is all Season Five and is actually in stereo throughout.

Content-wise, there are some good episodes on here. The pilot ("Knight of The Phoenix") is great to have uncut for the first time with no ad breaks and as the complete feature length episode that it should be shown as. A two episode broken up version does also exist in Universal`s catalogue so it`s good we got the complete version. Then we jump to episode 18 for "Chariot of Gold" which was always a superb story, followed by episode 4, "Good Day at White Rock" which is a seminal Saturday afternoon Dukes of Hazzard-esque caper complete with Texan biker gang and Universal-backlot set small town. Great stuff!

The printed packaging is dire and doesn`t use the correct logo, typefaces or established branding that is specified by Universal themselves! However, the DVD menus do and look a lot better for it. The extras are the usual insipid third hand inaccurate notes that this label seems to specialise in on their TV stuff. Yet again , a missed opportunity to use US TV spots, interviews, commercial break and promo stings etc.

And the worst crime of all for this exceptionally collectable series? Release it on single discs every four or five months with the episodes not in either production or transmission order! This series should be released in 4-DVD series boxsets in chronological order. They might find they sell a lot more that way. Otherwise you`re going to have to wait a long time to collect all 90 episodes!

Great DVD, but bad order of the episodes. For example when They start with the Pilot (Knight Of The Phoenix), after that is over they go to the eighth episode in the 1st series. And as for the third episode on the DVD they jump right back to the third episode and show that. This DVD is very good but the episodes are in a very bad order and mixed up.