Knight Rider fans have to be viewing the show’s return as a regular series on NBC this fall with some ambivalence. After all, while the two-hour TV film that acted as the new series’ pilot attracted a huge audience, there aren’t many people who watched it that actually like it. It’s now Gary Scott Thompson’s job to make the audience forget that and be comfortable coming back to watch Knight Rider every week.
“I’m frantically making those changes right now,” Thompson told Inside Line, when asked if there were going to be any significant differences between February’s TV movie and the series. “We’re determined to not have another Bionic Woman,” he said, referencing the series revival NBC undertook last year that collapsed in the ratings under the weight of its own pretensions. And he sees the series as something unique from the movie. “There’s the original series. There’s the two-hour movie. And now there’s the new series,” he explains.
Still, expect a lot of familiar faces to migrate from the movie to the series. Justin Bruening will return as KITT’s primary conversational partner, Deanna Russo and Sydney Tamiia Poitier will be back to provide feminine support and Bruce Davison will be on board to lend gravitas as the genius — sorry, super-genius — behind the KITT’s construction. And KITT’s voice will continue to be provided by Val Kilmer.
Knight Rider has been picked up by NBC for the 2008-2009 Fall season! You can check out a little about what is in store on Variety. They saw it will be a bit like The Fast and the Furious meets the show Las Vegas.
The show will air Wednesdays at 8:00 PM and have an encore on Saturdays at 9PM.
“We didn’t have a ton of time on the movie, which was done on a very tight schedule, so the biggest thing we want to do with the series is have more action and special effects, which requires time.” - Katherine Pope
While the ratings were nice for NBC’s Knight Rider, the film’s reviews aren’t so lucky. Check out a few, if you wish. I still haven’t watched the movie/pilot myself, but I was never terribly impressed (to say the least) with the remake, so I doubt my expectations are very high. I will be adding captures and clips in a few days none the less.
From Seattle PI
In industry-speak, this Knight Rider movie is what’s known as a “backdoor pilot.” (Scary thought, right?) But a lemon by any other name is still a lemon.
From Psyc3d
Well in conclusion I was quite impressed with the continuation of this classic series, the effects are cool. There is some very low budget shots that look quite bad (as an effects artist myself I am overly picky) but over all effects are pretty good. Characters are well chosen and fit the roles well, not as much over acting as we got out of David Hasslehoff in the past…
From Blog Critics
If this two-hour premiere is any indication, the new Knight Rider series is going to be a stinkfest. I thought that it would be horribly bad, but it’s just plain bad. Not that the original TV series was a masterpiece…
Knight Rider averaged a strong 5.0 rating/12 share in adults 18-49 and 12.7 million viewers overall from 9 to 11 p.m., building gradually from start to finish. No movie on television - telepic, theatrical or multipart original - has fared better in the demo since ABC’s Their Eyes Were Watching God in March 2005.
Knight Rider, from Universal Media Studios and Dutch Oven Prods. and starring Justin Bruening, Deanna Russo, Sydney Tamiia Poitier and Bruce Davison, appealed to a broad audience. It won its 9-11 p.m. timeslot in the 18-49, 25-54 and 12-34 demos, and fared best among men 18-49 and 25-54.
Knight has to be considered a strong candidate to return in some form next season, with NBC announcing its 2008-09 series selections in May.
Tonight (Sunday 02/17) is the premiere of the 2 hour TV movie/backdoor pilot Knight Rider! It airs on NBC at 9:00PM. Sydney stars as Carrie Rivai in it. If the movie does well we might even see it as a new series. Be sure to watch and check back for captures and clips!
ComingSoon.net has an article in which they talk about Sydney’s character. Here is her except:
On their journey, the two get help from FBI agent Carrie Rivai (Sydney Tamiia Poitier), who has a history with the Graimen’s. Her character’s back story is part of many storylines that will be tackled in the movie (and then possibly the series, if it gets picked up). “My character starts going after the bad guys and trying to figure out what happened to Charles to secure the safety of his daughter. She’s the liaison between the FBI and Mike Tracer and Charles Graimen and all those sort of KITT foundation people.”
To celebrate I have uploaded some new stills and promo shoots to the gallery.
Sydney attended the premiere of Knight Rider in Los Angeles this past tuesday, February 12th. She looked really pretty! I have added the few pictures I could find. Pictures are so scarce I nearly missed these!
We are days away from the premiere of Knight Rider and some promotion is starting to happen. In additions to new TV spots that have been airing on NBC, IESB.net has gotten five exclusive clips and a new poster. Unfortunately none of the clips have Sydney, but I added the poster to the gallery and thought some of you would like to know about these clips anyways.
Here is an official press release as well:
Knight Rider, the iconic 1980’s television classic that became a runaway success, returns with a modern day sequel. The two-hour movie event stars Justin Bruening (All My Children), Deanna Russo (The Young and the Restless), Sydney Tamiia Poitier (Veronica Mars, Grindhouse) and Bruce Davison (Breach, Close To Home). In addition, David Hasselhoff (NBC’s America’s Got Talent) — who starred in the popular lead role as Michael Knight for four seasons during the original series’ run - returns as the same character during a special guest-star appearance.
NBC is almost ready to roll out a new Knight Rider two-hour TV movie/backdoor pilot in less than two weeks. Things have run pretty smoothly, except for when Justin Bruening, who plays Mike Traceur (estranged son of Michael Knight), hurt his knee. But it looks like there was at least one other bump for the production, according to SciFi Wire.
Will Arnett was hired to be the voice of K.I.T.T. on the movie, but then a contractual conflict of interest reared its ugly head. Arnett has done voiceover work for General Motors for almost a decade. Oops, that’s a problem considering the new K.I.T.T. is a black 550 HP Ford Shelby GT500KR Mustang and Ford is actually taking a very active role in the marketing of the telefilm.
