Sam Jones III vs. RC3

One was a staunch friend, a good student trusted with a secret. The other was a street-smart warrior who could drive a big truck. Both worked closely with heroes, and both were treated shabbily at one point or another in their careers. At last, a question that has plagued humanity shall be answered, as Sam Jones III faces off against RC3.

Sam Jones III is best known for his role as Pete Ross on television's Smallville. For three seasons he was the best friend of Tom Welling's young Clark Kent. He even learned Clark's secret, that he was an alien from another planet with powers beyond those of mortal men. It was a good part, and he became more involved in stories once he knew his friend could do so many amazing things. Gradually, Pete made fewer and fewer appearances in episodes. Some weeks he wouldn't appear, while others he wouldn't have any lines. The classic example that stays with me is in the episode Crisis. Throughout the episode Clark receives phone calls from the future, thanks to Kryptonite which magically catalyzes all strange happenings on that show. His girlfriend Lana(Kristin Kreuk) is, or will be, in trouble, menaced by Lost's Ian Somerhalder. Somerhalder played a character named “Adam Knight”, a wealthy youth with a secret that didn't turn out to be what rabid fans on message boards expected it to be when they put the words ”West” and ”Knight” in the middle of his name. Pete has one crucial appearance in this episode. On a dark and stormy night, he finally appears in a room as a phone rings, the call from Lana about Adam that Clark had heard a day earlier. Pete walks across the room, lifts the phone and is about to speak when Clark zips in at superspeed, grabs the phone and shouts for Lana, then races to trace the call leaving a bewildered and silent Sam Jones III in a scene that could have been a spoof of the show. Five episodes later, after his character survives torture and still refuses to reveal Clark's secret, Sam Jones III would leave the show. Pete's parents would divorce and, deciding that he couldn't risk betraying his friend someday, decides to leave town with his mother.

My memories of Knight Rider had been admittedly jumbled, since I watched the majority of episodes in syndication. The fourth and final season was the only one I was old enough to stay up late enough to watch in primetime, after begging my parents, and so I would see old and new episodes out of order. Fortunately, except for a few multi-part episodes, each chapter stood alone, and the idea of continuity across seasons and longer story arcs had not yet caught on in television. Each week Michael Knight and his technologically advanced and intelligent car KITT would face new enemies. Each week there would be walls to smash through and obstacles to leap over. Each week Michael had only to shout “I need ya buddy!” into his wristwatch for KITT to race to his side. Each week there would be a new damsel in distress, and Michael probably kissed all of them. He was my hero. When he was on the road, he'd sometimes drive into the back of a semi tractor trailer, a mobile command unit where he could engage in expository dialogue with his boss Devon and technician Bonnie(temporarily replaced in the second season by April, but that's a showdown for another day). Bonnie would often install some new device in KITT, or Devon would provide Michael with more information on his mission before he leapt into the car and backed out of the moving truck, tires squealing as they raced in to action. No wonder I enjoyed the original Spyhunter game so much, as that car would drive into the back of a truck for upgrades after each level.

One thing I never gave much thought to was who drove the truck. They never dealt with it much, and on episodes where the driver did appear it was RC3. Since I watched season 4 originally in between the other episodes, I assumed he was always there and simply didn't always have something to contribute to the story. I've been reliving my childhood on DVD, as I regularly do, and recently watching this series in order. When I got to season four and saw the two-part ”Knight of the Juggernaut,” I finally learned the origin of RC3, a.k.a. Reginald Cornelius the Third, a.k.a. the “Street Avenger”, played by Peter Parros, an actor who went on to appear in several soap operas. RC's origin was not at all what I expected, and he initially appears as a Chicago vigilante who runs around wearing shades, a hat and a trenchcoat, waving a rubber assault rifle and scaring criminals by telling them to “get” and asking them if they “dig”. The ‘80s were a very different era when it came to portraying stereotypes. When K.I.T.T. is destroyed, RC3 and his street cronies come to the rescue and help rebuild him, earning him a place on the team and as a new regular on the show. He ditches his vigilante mission and looks forward to fighting side-by-side with Michael. I noticed, however, how often he subsequently got the “Pete Ross” treatment. He'd be eager to race off with Michael, only to have Devon tell him to remain behind because it was “too dangerous,” or make some borderline racist comment about his “dreadful street lingo”. In one episode the four main cast members are standing around in the back of the truck discussing a case. RC3 poses a question, a rather pertinent one that inspires Michael with an idea. Devon's response? He complains that he wishes RC would get back to driving the truck, as he doesn't trust the autopilot. If nothing else, the line answered the obvious question of “if they're all here, who's driving the truck?”, but it was also an unfair dismissal in context of his contribution. On the other hand, RC3 does get carjacked by a group of teenagers, including Scott Valentine, in the episode ”The Wrong Crowd.” The autopilot and/or faceless drivers from the first three seasons never lost the rig.

So, how does RC3 stack up against Sam Jones III? While Jones was marginalized and eventually written out of the show, Parros' role on his series increased. In the episode Knight Sting, he plays a key role in an undercover operation a la Alias, and by the episode ”Knight of the Rising Sun,” he's actually racing off on a motorcycle and fighting side-by-side with Michael against a clan of Japanese martial artists. If the show lasted more than five seasons, and tied in more seamlessly with the sequel series Team Knight Rider, I think we might have seen even more of RC3. In the long run then, against Sam Jones III, RC3 wins.

He is, after all, the Street Avenger. You dig?