“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.

Thompson was coy about David Hasselhoff coming back as Michael Knight, who it was established in the film, is the father of Justin Bruening’s character. There can’t, however, be any possible downside to adding some serious ‘Hoff street cred to any production.

Also returning will be a bunch of Mustangs portraying the Shelby GT500KR that serves as the base for KITT itself. “KITT is still the Shelby,” says Thompson. “But the ‘attack mode’ is completely different. We’re going to see a lot of cool stuff. A thousand times cooler than the morphing we’ve seen before. As my kid said, ‘Big deal, our car can talk.’ “Yeah, but can it do this? Or that?’ It’s the ‘do that’ that will be different.” For the individual who paid $300,000 during the March Barrett-Jackson auction in Florida for two of the Mustangs used in the film’s production (including the attack mode KITT), that the series will feature a different attack version of the car may not be good news.

“There will also be a new base — a top secret lab, a KITT cave — that will be super-awesome,” Thompson says, though he leaves open the possibility that both the original series rolling-lab semi and the airplane from the film will return in some form as well.

For many of the original show’s fans however, that KITT could talk was wholly inconsequential. What really sold the show for them was the series of ludicrous leaps and hard-core stunts performed by that old Pontiac every week. Is “turbo boost” coming back? And will KITT fly again? “There will be some version of turbo boost. But jumping destroys cars and Ford isn’t giving us that many cars.

“You’re going to see some stunts. We’re doing an hour movie every week. We want the ‘wow’ factor.”

Here’s Inside Line’s bit of unsolicited advice to Thompson: Do whatever you have to do get KITT up in the air every week. Cut the catering budget, scour Craigslist for cheap Mustangs, beg Ford super hard for more cars, because what Knight Rider needs more than anything else is some truly ludicrous stunts. If you’re not wrecking a Mustang every week, there’s something wrong.

What this means to you: If you’re an actor, production starts in June and you might be cast! For the rest of us, we’ll all give Knight Rider yet another chance when it debuts in its latest form this September.

Source: InsideLine

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

Today I added some pictures of Sydney’s earlier TV & Film images, nothing too new here, except for some rarer seen TV Show stills with many thanks to Riikka for her donations. I’ve also added a set of candids from March 11, 2008 thanks to Ally. Sydney news is slow and will probably remain that way for some time so I decided to post candids, if of course Sydney is visually upset or there seems to be a real invasion of her privacy I’ll stop. But I don’t expect many candids anyways. Click here to see the few new additions.

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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.