While the official press conference will be held later today, the news that Knight Rider has been chosen to become a prime-time series has already leaked out. (link) According to Variety, Knight Rider, “the Doug Liman produced actioner whose two-hour backdoor pilot snagged solid ratings in February,” has been added to NBC’s 2008 fall line-up. (link) This should come as a shock to no one considering the initial Knight Rider movie “clocked nearly 13 million viewers, making it the second-most-watched scripted program that week…[and] it copped the biggest crowd of 18-to-49-year-olds, NBC’s target age bracket, of any made-for-TV movie or theatrical on any network in nearly three years.” (link)While those numbers are staggering, it seems silly to expect such a low quality made-for-TV movie to be able to sustain such a large number of viewers as a weekly serial next fall. The nostalgia for Knight Rider may have drawn viewers to their tube on a random Sunday night, but the show better deliver, and deliver fast, or viewers will not stick around. Because of the increased number of channels available and the high quality of television viewers have become accustomed to, viewers are less inclined to wait for a show to develop.
This means NBC Co-Chairman Ben Silverman better make sure all of the show’s ducks are in a row before unleashing the final product to the American viewing public. I’m hoping Knight Rider improves quality wise and takes off as a series, but odds are this show, like many other new shows debuting in the fall, will crash and burn. It’s unfortunate but it’s also the world we live in, shows nowadays get 2-3 weeks to find an audience or its arrivederci. Although, the fact that the show has already debuted as a TV movie to strong numbers should go a long way to fortifying an audience, at least for the first few airings.
