Comic-Con ‘08: Take The New Knight Rider Out For A Spin
Posted by SH
Speculation ran wild when a new “Knight Rider” movie aired on NBC earlier this year that it was actually a pilot for a new series. Well, that turned out to be true — the show premieres Sept. 24 — but the producers say to forget pretty much everything in that movie. There’s a new sheriff in town, executive producer Gary Scott Thompson, who knows his way around fast cars. He wrote the first two “Fast and the Furious” movies and wasted no time making this show his own. The lead, Mike Traceur (Jason Bruening), has a new but familiar name, Michael Knight, and Deanna Russo’s character is no longer a college professor (OK, she’s on sabbatical), focusing instead on wearing high heels and kicking butt.
KITT still sounds like Val Kilmer, but the super-intelligent car can now transform into “attack mode” and become a badass war machine. The crowd visibly oohed and awed at the sight. They also reacted with glee at the news that the creators are in serious talks with the Hoff for a recurring role.
I was a child of the ’80s, but honestly I never got too into “Knight Rider.” That probably means I could enjoy the new incarnation more than someone taking notes and forgoing anything enjoyable about it and instead just lamenting everything that’s different. That said, it doesn’t look to be as drastic a reimagining as, say, “Battlestar Galactica,” so fans of the original should find plenty to geek out over.
The most memorable part of the session had nothing to do with the preview, or the Q&A. Most of the cast was late because of — impending irony alert — they were stuck in traffic. Where’s KITT when you need him?
Spike’s The Kill Point premieres this Sunday, with a two-hour presentation. I’ve been writing about The Kill Point now for nearly three months since I visited the set in Pittsburgh, and have amazingly managed to avoid Kill Point burnout. I’ve been screening a lot of comedies (many of them not so good) for our fall preview, and have been looking forward to finally watching The Kill Point DVD Spike sent me about a month ago. I watched it yesterday afternoon, and I’m happy to say that my three months of buildup for this series didn’t go to waste.
If you’ve been following along, then you’ve probably figured out that Spike’s The Kill Point has some heavy, intense stuff in it. So I saved the fun stuff for last, just to lighten it up a bit before the show premieres this weekend. (Check back on Friday for my review of the first episode.)
When I think back to 17 or 18 years ago, I probably would’ve freaked if someone told me I’d someday be interviewing a guy whose face was printed on my younger sister’s bedsheets. Donnie Wahlberg has definitely come a long way since the New Kids on the Block. He’s developed into quite a solid actor, and I was impressed with his roles in Band of Brothers, The Path to 9/11 and, earlier this year, Kings of South Beach (check out this personal interview