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Knight Rider: How Did the NBC Movie Do? Are We Getting a New Series?

Published:February 18, 2008

The new Knight RiderBack in September 2007, NBC announced that they were going to (once again) revive Knight Rider, the popular action series from the 1980s. Despite having unsuccessfully attempted to revive KITT a couple times in the past, the peacock network wanted to give it another try. They were likely encouraged by the early success of their Bionic Woman reboot.

For the new movie, they cast hottie Justin Bruening as the son of Michael Knight (David Hasselhoff), created a new high-tech car (in a big marketing deal with Ford), and the movie was off and running. From the start, the new Knight Rider movie has been viewed as a backdoor pilot. If it performed well, a regular television series would follow.

The film aired last night and critical reception has been lukewarm at best. But more importantly, how did it perform in the ratings? Will we be seeing a new series?

Well, based on the overnight ratings, the movie kicked off at 9pm and attracted an average of almost 12.5 million, putting it in second place for the hour (bested by the second half of a two-hour Extreme Makeover: Home Edition). In the second hour, the audience grew to almost 13 million and it moved to first place for the hour. Most importantly, the movie was in first place with the all-important 18-49 demographic for both hours. NBC notes that the Knight Rider movie performed better than any network movie in almost three years.



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These ratings are certainly a very good sign that we’ll see a new series next season. They’re not blockbuster numbers but they’re very good. If the series gets a greenlight, will viewers really want to watch Knight Rider on a weekly basis? Will yet another 1980s series revival prove to be a rerun of Bionic Woman’s failure or Battlestar Galactica’s success? Stay tuned! TV Series Finale home page

 

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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Remy March 20, 2008 at 4:41 pm

I think the new Knight Rider came out pretty well because a lot of people who used to watched the show in the 80′s (well, when they were so young), had a great pull on their children. I was in an elevator and women/men were talking about it and was having a great time relieving the past and was even laughing that they were talking about the new show to their kids..you know about during their time, comparison, etc. The big kick was and I think it was a great move for NBC to include Hoff in it! The ladies were like teenagers again..hahah! The men were even discussing and comparing the before and new KITT. This put a huge smile in my face. Hope they keep up with this. But for me, I waited for Hoff and really got a thrill seeing him on it again..nothing beats the original Knight though :)

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Ryce March 19, 2008 at 10:37 am

As for the Bionic Woman she amazingly sucked of course she was trying to fill big shoes but I think they should have stuck with Sara Corliss (the shows first bionic women) she added spice to the show. Knight Rider I gave it 2 thumbs up yet another show where the pressure was on to cast a suitable “Kinght Rider” the fact is David Hasselhoff in his glory days was one of the hottest hunks he made most men feel comfortable about wearing leather pants. Justin Bruening is hot but he’s no David Hasselhoff. I still think he fit the bill, longterm we’ll just have to see !

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