Knight Rider. It is the bane of my existence, and it is going to get radically changed according to The Hollywood Reporter. The current formula is getting canned, as are three of the regular actors -- Sydney Tamiia Portier (Carrie), Yancey Arias (Alex), and Bruce Davison (Graiman). Knight Rider czar Gary Scott Thompson is calling this a full "reboot" of the show, which follows the partial reboot that occurred between the pilot telemovie and weekly series premiere. Why is this necessary? There are two key reasons.

  1. The show sucks. The acting, the writing, Attack Mode K.I.T.T. -- I could go on. For more details, read the liveblogs. You will then know what I do: this is crap.
  2. No one watches. KR apologists will talk about how the show plays well with guys in the 18-34 demo, but seriously, these people need to zip it. Last week's episode was beaten outright in its timeslot by Cuidado con el Angel. That's a telenovela that airs on ... wait for it, because this is completely awesome ... Univision.
So, in an effort to make the show not suck so that more people watch, Thompson says, "We're moving away from the terrorist-of-the-week formula and closer to the original, making it a show about a man and his car going out and helping more regular people, everymen." Regular characters Mike, Sarah, Zoe, and Billy survive the rejiggering, and the word is that NBC will look to stunt-cast other actors in the weekly stories to add some juice. (Cough...Hoff...cough). The new-and-probably-still-not-improved KR will arrive in January. If this frantic re-do doesn't yield marked improvements ratings-wise, we expect to see KITT turn into a pumpkin instead of an F-150 at season's end.

Either way, I'm stuck watching it every week. Feel free to join me.

[Sources: The Hollywood Reporter, TV By The Numbers]