In 1982 a young man named Michael Knight (played by a big haired Member's Only jacket wearing David Hasselhoff) drove off the back of a truck in his slick, black Trans Am, and into our collective TV watching hearts. The ladies swooned for him, and the guys all wanted to be just like him. Michael Knight was the coolest cat to hit TV that season, and his car made him even cooler. Who was this Michael Knight guy? Well, he was a crime-fighter who got attacked and almost killed by a gang of criminals. A strange rich guy who owned Knight Industries had his team of crack surgeons bring him back to the land of the living and build him a new face. Re-named Michael Knight, he's been tasked with fighting criminals who find themselves above the law using the kind of high technology that Knight Industries specializes in with the help of an older English man named Devon who acts as a Knight Industries representative and Bonnie, the lovely lady in charge of keeping K.I.T.T., Michael's super car, up to speed.

Two years later and still going strong in the third season (there were four in total), Michael and his indestructible talking car K.I.T.T. continued to have many adventures, and the writers of the show continued to find new and unusual ways to have Michael and K.I.T.T. find problems to solve and crime to fight. Here's the low down on a few highlight episodes, to give you a taste of what this set is all about…

Knight Of The Drones: The only two-parter in the third season, finds Michael battling an evil scientist who is using an army of robots and 'drone cars' to pull off a heist at a large bank. Devon gets word of this plan and sends Michael and K.I.T.T. in to put a stop to it all before it's too late, but they're going to be vastly outnumbered and things don't look too good for our heroes. Look for former NFL star Jim Brown in a supporting role.

Halloween Knight: This time out, the focus is more on Bonnie than on Michael but it makes for an interesting change. She's the unfortunate witness to a murder that takes place right near the new apartment that she's just moved into. After that happens, she starts seeing and hearing weird things in her new digs and she starts to think that she might be losing it. Will Michael and K.I.T.T. be able to help her become the grounded and sensible hottie that she once was or will she fall off the deep end once and for all?

K.I.T.T. Vs. K.A.R.R.: The highlight of the third season is this episode in which K.A.R.R. is found buried beneath the sand by a young couple. After he's been freed, K.A.R.R. seduces the guy into driving him around and getting him back up to speed so that he can launch another assault on Michael and K.I.T.T. by staging what they think is going to be an armored car robbery. Good thing Bonnie's going to install a new laser for K.I.T.T., or at least you'd think so until K.A.R.R. steals it. All of this goes down to the sounds of the Pointer Sisters in a couple of scenes.

Knight In Disgrace: This episode is made super cool by the presence of one Mr. Ken Foree, star of Dawn Of The Dead and more recently, The Devil's Rejects. He plays a criminal who hires Michael to steal a special key from Devon after Michael is on the outs with him when it looks like he's responsible for some nasty drug smuggling action that's been going on in the area.

Lost Knight: After a massive electrical surge that happens in the heat of a battle with some car thieves, K.I.T.T.'s memory chips are wiped clean and he flips out and takes off on Michael. Later that day a teenage boy finds the car wandering around and hops in, as he too is running from the same thieves as they know he saw them stashing their getaway car and could easily tell the cops. A young Jason Bateman guest stars.

Knight Of The Chameleon: A master criminal known only as the Chameleon has a talent for disguise and he uses his ability to blend in to break into a government compound and steal a secret jetpack. Michael and K.I.T.T. have to get the jetpack back and so Michael goes undercover as a soldier of fortune to infiltrate his ranks before the Chameleon sells it to someone who would only use it for evil!

Knight By A Nose: In the world of horse racing a man stages the death of his prize mare to cash in on the insurance money so that he can pay off some debts that he owes to some very bad people. He then intends to sell the horse illegally and make some serious coin on that transaction as well. Michael and K.I.T.T. are not down with this at all.

The Nineteenth Hole: Michael and K.I.T.T. are tooling around a small town when they find out that the sponsor of a local road rally competition has been receiving death threats from some mysterious evil doer. Michael enlists in the competition and he and K.I.T.T. pose as racers to try and sniff out the rat.

Ten Wheel Trouble: It's not often that the world of secret criminal organizations and high tech crime fighters merge with the big rig trucking industry but thankfully this episode is an exception as Michael has to pose as a truck driver so that he can investigate an evil corporation who are trying to move in on some good old independent road warriors who are just trying to make an honest living. This episode features a supporting character named Shatner, who is unfortunately not William Shatner.

Knight Strike: A gang of thieves steal a cache of confiscated weapons from a police station. Some of the hot six shooters show up for sales at trade show and Michael and K.I.T.T. start sniffing around to see if they can follow the trail to the culprits responsible for the theft. They do, only to find out that these guys also have lasers! Watch out Michael and K.I.T.T.! Watch out!!!!

Circus Knights: In the season finale, Michael and K.I.T.T. have the unfortunate task of having to join up with a circus so that they can put their sleuthing skills to the test by attempting to figure out who is trying to run it out of business and why. David Hasselhoff proves he is a born performer in this episode and we get to see him do daredevil stunts with K.I.T.T. – it's pretty funny stuff.

The third season of Knight Rider ran from September 30, 1984 through May 5, 1985, the complete list of episodes in this set is as follows:

Knight Of The Drones (Parts 1 And 2)
The Ice Bandits
Knights Of The Fast Lane
Halloween Knight
K.I.T.T. vs. K.A.R.R.
The Rotten Apples
Knight In Disgrace
Dead Of Knight
Lost Knight
Knight Of The Chameleon
Custom Made Killer
Knight By A Nose
Junk Yard Dog
Buy Out
Knightlines
The Nineteenth Hole
Knight And Knerd
Ten Wheel Trouble
Knight in Retreat
Knight Strike
Circus Knight

Everything about this series is completely dated, from the Member's Only jackets to the soundtrack to the cars to the dialogue to the plots and the hairstyles but that only adds to the charm of the series. Some of the storytelling is pretty creative in spots and as implausible as each and every one of the episodes in this set is, they're still a lot of fun even if sometimes we're laughing at the series and maybe not so much laughing with it. It's all good entertainment, however, and it's never boring.

Unfortunately, with the good comes the bad. The third season featured two songs by Prince that had to be taken out due to copyright issues, and some of the sound effects are reported to be missing from certain scenes throughout most of the set (you'll notice that more often than not you do not hear K.I.T.T.'s engines). In Universal's defense, they might not have been able to come to an agreement with 'the Prince camp' to get the songs included on the set, and seeing as a lot of the other original eighties pop music is in here it's probably a fairly safe assumption (though still an assumption none the less) that they tried.

Video:

Much like on the first two seasons, the picture quality on these episodes, all shown in their correct fullframe aspect ratio, is a mixed bag. The good – there is plenty of detail evident in the picture, and the colors look really nice. The picture is sharp and flesh tones look nice and natural. Sounds perfect, right? Well, there's a lot of edge enhancement on this release, and it does get a tad distracting in a couple of scenes. There are even a few spots where the image is almost wiggly because of it. This brings the overall viewing experience down a bit because of it. There's also a bit of print damage constantly rearing its head throughout the series, though none of it is overly severe.