Code of Vengeance

Did You Know?

• The double-length Knight Rider episode Mouth of the Snake was released on DVD in April 2005 as part of the Knight Rider: Season Two set.
• The Code of Vengeance pilot aired opposite a new two-hour special episode of Call to Glory starring Craig T. Nelson.

Origins

The character David Dalton was the brainchild of writer Robert Foster and executive producer Glen A. Larson for a potential series, All That Glitters. This project’s two-hour backdoor pilot debuted on April 8, 1984. Charles Taylor played Dalton, a government agent, while Joanna Pettet portrayed Joanna St. John. The pilot’s script came from Robert Gilmer and Robert Foster, with Winrich Kolbe directing and Robert Gilmer, Gian Grimaldi, and Tom Greene producing. NBC passed on the series, concluding its format too closely resembled Cover Up, another Larson creation for CBS.

Second pilot

NBC commissioned a second pilot, Code of Vengeance, for the 1985 season. This pilot reimagined David Dalton as a flashback-prone Vietnam veteran who drifts across the country in a camper van with his German Shepherd named Wichita, helping people with a simpler, more violent fighting style. The Associated Press described Dalton as a modern version of Shane, like Highway to Heaven but using fists rather than good deeds. In the story, Dalton arrives in a small Arizona town and meets Nadine Flowers (Erin Gray), her son A.J. (Chad Allen), and her mother Ione (Lenka Peterson).

Other cast members included Charles Haid, Keenan Wynn, Randall "Tex" Cobb, and Joe Dorsey. In a nod to the show's origins, Keenan Wynn's character watches a Knight Rider episode as armed thugs surround his home. The teleplay was written by Robert Foster, directed by Rick Rosenthal, with cinematography by Duke Callaghan and Thomas Del Ruth. NBC declined to pick up this pilot as a series and shelved it until it aired on June 30, 1985, as the NBC Sunday Night Movie.

Series

Promoted as being in the tradition of Rambo and airing weeks after Rambo: First Blood Part II, the Code of Vengeance telemovie was a surprise ratings success, tying an episode of Family Ties as the second-highest rated show of the week. NBC ordered six one-hour episodes as a midseason replacement series titled Dalton. Filming took place across the United States, with plans to shoot two episodes per location, but was troubled by weather including flash flooding in Houston and a hurricane in New Orleans.

Originally slated for a January 1986 debut, the series faced script and production issues. After just four episodes were filmed, NBC suspended production in December 1985 and ordered Universal Television to re-edit the completed episodes into two feature-length movies. The first, Dalton: Code of Vengeance II, aired on May 11, 1986, as the NBC Sunday Night Movie. In it, Dalton travels to Houston to help friend Jeanne Bennett locate her husband, his former commanding officer Major Monty Bennett, who is aiding a conservative paramilitary group of Vietnam veterans planning domestic terrorism. Dalton stops the group in the Florida Everglades.

In other media

The 1984 novel Knight Rider: The 24-Carat Assassin, credited to Glen A. Larson and Roger Hill and issued by Target Books, is an adaptation of the "Mouth of the Snake" episode. Its main characters are Dalton and St. John, while Michael Knight and KITT have minor roles. This book was one of two official Knight Rider tie-in novels released in the UK but never in the US. A German translation by Carla Blesgen, titled Ein Hochkarätiger Killer, came out from Bertelsmann in 1988.