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Airdate: Knight Rider telemovie

The telemovie remake will air on Seven the night of the AFL Grand Final, prior to the series in October.

The telemovie remake of Knight Rider will air this month on Seven before it unleashes the series in October.

Seven has slated the film in the surprising time of 9pm Saturday September 27. For what is effectively a springboard to the subsequent series, it is an interesting choice.

Although the film is rated M the timeslot could be a late start for kids. The film will follow the family movie Cars at 6:30pm. Being a Saturday night, young adults are likely to already be enjoying their weekend too, especially those who have been enjoying the AFL Grand Final. At least that’s a good chance to promo the evening schedule.

The telemovie aired in the US in February to mixed reviews, but it was enough to ignite a full series. It stars Justin Bruening, Deanna Russo and Bruce Davison. Val Kilmer was a late change as the voice of the new-look KITT. ‘The Hoff’ has a cameo.

Seven will fasttrack the series in October, after it premieres in the US on September 24th.

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20 Responses

  1. We watched the telemovie and loved it! Being a little too young to appreciate the original series, I was pleasantly surprised by this one!
    So, it’s almost December now, and not a word about the actual series and when it’s airing!
    Can anybody shed some light for us as to when we can expect to see the show on TV please?

  2. I was a kid during the original series and loved it. Didn’t mind the movie and will give the series a go with my own kids. Didn’t really care for the plot holes – 200 mph on US highways and not another car or police car in sight!?!? Wouldn’t that be nice for the drive to work each day…

  3. Ok, seen the first episode of the series, I liked it. I will keep watching, wasn’t convinced from the movie. The series is good, It’s fun and a little over the top, but it’s got a good tone and good entertainment.

  4. Bionic Woman would have lasted longer if it wasn’t network tv. Genre shows are really hard to take off on network tv.

    Lost is probably the most successful sci-fi network show of recent times, but people didn’t even know it was a sci-fi show to begin with, so they snuck that in.

  5. I think The Office (US) is better than the British version. But that’s comedy, not sci-fi. I wonder what would happen if the US tried to remake Doctor Who. They’d probably get bomb threats lol

  6. I reckon this will suffer the same fate as “Bionic Woman”. II’m struggling to think of US remakes that have actually worked – maybe Battlestar Galactica?

  7. I thought it was decent, but it was set up as a badly thought out sci-fi series. The rules of what the car can and can’t do were just plain silly. It’ll lead to it never being consistent. The whole, “well why didn’t they just do such and such, which they did in last weeks episode, that’d get them out of this situation”.

    However the show runner said he had a lot of issues with the movie and he only agreed to do it, if he could make the changes he wanted. So in some ways, it’s going to be separate from the series. If the series kicks ass, I could see the telemovie as putting people off. Honestly I wouldn’t be overly interested to check the series out, based just on this.

  8. Just in case anyone is interested…. I’ve seen it…. IT IS #$@*^!% AWESOME!!! possibly the best remake ever. Look out for a possible link to Las Vegas now that the show has been canned (same production company). Should answer a few questions from the series finale…. (not yet shown in aus)

  9. The Knight Rider TV movie would bomb on a Thursday night. Its better off on a Saturday as its more “family fare”. Its alright, its nothing special. Its good for a 2 hr dose of mindless fun. Although I doubt the series will rate very highly when it airs on Seven, its likely to be the next Bionic Woman.

  10. why a telemovie on saturday, that is exactly what ch7 needs for a thursday night to finish off the strip, i think as soon as people miss one episode of it they will never go back. 2 hour ghost whisperer, i’m sorry, just does not do the job.

    anyway ch9 deserves it putting underbelly against packed to the rafters, that should be some unwritten golden rule: do not put australian dramas against each other. especially the good ones

  11. Channel seven does such great line ups and promotes them really well. A ‘Car’ themed saturday night is awsome, both Cars and knight rider are really good movies.

  12. This telemovie is a watchable bit of disposable fun, nothing more, nothing less. The lead guy is pretty limp in the role and I agree with Sephiroth’s disappointment in Will Arnett not being in it. Val Kilmer overacts big. And he’s playing a flipping CAR!

    Will be interesting to see whether this goes the way of Battlestar with strong writing, or the way of Knight Boat with convenient plot fjords.

  13. I guess they’ll be ramping up the promoting soon.

    I’ll probably wait to see what Seven does aka will it last?

    At this rate I might need to go out and by a HDD recorder with twin HDD tuners 😛

  14. @Benno: There’s a movie from a few years back called (iirc) “Knight 2000” that .. well .. sucked.

    The movie C7 are showing is the pilot to the new series. Some people hated it, others loved it. I’m in the latter group.

    Most of the flak I’ve seen the pilot get was about the car: the original Kitt was a TransAm, the new one is (again iirc) a Charger. [If the reason you don’t watch the series is because of the model of car .. then give up and do something else other than watch TV]

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