For those of you who were hoping that the Knight Rider series remake would be better than what was widely considered the terrible two-hour pilot will now have a reason to cheer up. It looks like the series itself isn’t going to be based on the pilot.
For whatever reason NBC decided to greenlight the series despite our objections here at Pop Critics. Perhaps they listened to some of our ideas after all, however, and decided that they could still make a decent show because they went out and hired Gary Scott Thompson as the Executive Producer and showrunner.
Gary Scott Thompson is a self proclaimed motorhead who brought us Vegas on NBC as well as the movie The Fast and the Furious. Thompson, it seems, actually has some professional ethics. When NBC asked him what he thought of the pilot he questioned their sanity in asking if they really wanted to know that or not. He basically said that the movie did not advance anything about the mythos of the show and the series would need to be reinvented.
The only thing he really did like about the pilot was the fact that it ended in a way that will allow him to take the series in a new direction. He actually told the studio that he will take the show in the direction he feels necessary to maintain his credibility. How often do you hear something like that? It sounds like maybe he’s really going to try to do something with the thing.
To help him out he’s bringing in 7 to 8 writers, some of whom he’s worked with before. The writers he’s bringing in have worked on shows ranging from Crossing Jordan and Charmed to Lost, Prison Break, and the first couple seasons of Smallville (which are supposedly the best).
Thompson will be writing the first episode himself. He plans to make the story such that you won’t have had to seen the two hour pilot in order to get involved in the series itself. He wants to grab the audience’s attention, get old fans back on board, and get the new fans to stick around.
They start shooting in June.
Perhaps there’s hope afterall.
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Thank God I don’t need to see the movie to know what’s going on in the series…
Now that this guy is trying hard to make it good, I think I’ll give it a chance this fall.
I never watched the pilot after reading Mike’s review. Thanks again Mike for saving me two hours that I would have never gotten back.
Hopefully, this new start for the show will make it better in the long run.
Yeah but as bad as the 2 hour pilot was (..and trust me it was bad…) it was still better than Speed Racer
Man, that pilot was bad. When Traceur’s mom was killed in front of him…and he showed about as much emotion as Al Gore or Tim Duncan in response?!… UGH.
The car looks very different with the old series. Is the car still name Kit?
Yeah, it’s named Kitt, but it’s a Mustang now.
[...] two items of note to me: The laughing I still do at Knight Rider making it to a full series (although there is some hope) and the SNL Thursday Night Live edition delaying my beloved 30 Rock by three weeks. Also, [...]