UPDATE: Word has just come out of Variety: Knight Rider has turbo boosted itself straight to the end of the season. This marks NBC’s first “back nine” pickup of the season for a new show. Wow.
Despite what I wrote below, I wasn’t and I’m not out for the show to fail. Knight Rider was one of the most fun TV experiences of my kidhood and I had such high expectations when I heard about the updated show. Then I saw it and…well, expecations are a bitch ain’t they?
The original show wasn’t Masterpiece Theatre. Hell, it was barely Sesame Street. But it was fun, and even though the Hoff will always be the Hoff, he had presence in the role. Justin Bruening so far, I’m trying to find something to stand out about him and coming up with nothing but an empty tank. As for KITT, well…let’s just say that I’m buying the whole turns into n F-150 thing about as much as I’m going to be buying a new F-150 in the foreseeable future.
This show is not good. The writing is something akin to what I’d expect of those syndicated action TV shows from a decade ago like Mortal Kombat: Conquest, Conan The Adventurer, NightMan or…well, Team Knight Rider. I’m expecting an episode soon where Deanna Russo gets captured by a lesbian Baja 1000 dune buggy smuggling unit and they only race in lingerie. That’s the level of stuff I’ve seen so far.
On a related note, Ford stock just went up a half a point.
Thanks to John Perrella for the scoop.
Story from 10/13:
Variety reports today that NBC has turbo boosted an order four more scripts to the Knight Rider remake. Which means that we’re going to get at least four more opportunities to see the lovely Deanna Russo (pictured) in either her underwear, a bikini, or hopefully, covered in motor oil and not much else.
The numbers for the show to date have been hanging just north of Bionic Woman’s numbers near the end of its eight episode run last season. But considering that that show started off with nearly twice that number and then steadily slid down as it searched for some kind of coherent format, not to mention a new showrunner every week, this news comes as a bit of a surprise.
I think it’s safe to say that Knight Rider has ended up like Bionic rather than Battlestar, with the first episode akin to being laughable at best. I had modest hopes when I saw the backdoor pilot this past spring, but considering that the show is ending up as a ripoff of Viper which itself was a semi-semi-semi-passable ripoff of the original Knight, my money is for sweeps when star Justin Bruening goes up against his moustached doppleganger, Garth Traceur, who’ll probably be rolling in a nanotech Hummer or some shit.