New Knight Rider - closing statement
Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 1:21 am
As much as KI3T is a prototype, unfinished and untested, the same could be said of the pilot. More so, it wasn't a true pilot but a "backdoor pilot". But what is a backdoor pilot?
Backdoor pilots are made on the cheap, with heavy merchandise and guaranteed distribution. In short, the Knight Rider 2-hour movie was already paid off before it aired on Feb. 17.
Once there was a man... and his dream. The new Knight Rider was a dream as well, a product of 37-year-old Ben Silverman. He saw the viability of a new series, he believed in the Knight Rider mythos and he was the one who took the biggest risks.
More than paying for itself in advance, Ben's strategy has paid off. Knight Rider captured the totality of the 18-49 demographic in Feb. 17. It got extensive coverage in all kinds of media -- enthusiast, general, specialist -- and galvanized literally the whole country on a weekend where not many watched TV.
Back to prototypes and pilots, it's natural for a pilot to have pacing problems, weird characterization (threesome / gay FBI agent), not enough action, cheesy CGI and "all too simple" plot. It's natural and expected. The best of the best in TV shows always have problems with their first episodes. If we take Six Feet Under as an example, the first episode of every season (excluding the very first one) was bad. Sometimes tedious, sometimes confusing, always unsatisfying.
To make matters worse, Knight Rider went against a cult, established and older competitor: itself, twenty-five years ago. DVD sets remain on sale and the classic Knight Rider remains being broadcast. In every second of the new show, fans all around America -- and later, the world -- would (and did) measure it against Knight Rider, 1982.
So the new show succeeds and grabs 13 million viewers. It shatters previous records, this time competing against Hollywood blockbusters, originals and serialized TV movies. Against all the negative criticism, from fans and movie critics alike, it succeeds.
If a flawed, sometimes plodding pilot achieves this, what to say of a well-thought, adequately funded show? What can we expect of something made for fans, by fans but at the same time finally in tune with the 21st century?
In one word... Greatness.
At last.
Backdoor pilots are made on the cheap, with heavy merchandise and guaranteed distribution. In short, the Knight Rider 2-hour movie was already paid off before it aired on Feb. 17.
Once there was a man... and his dream. The new Knight Rider was a dream as well, a product of 37-year-old Ben Silverman. He saw the viability of a new series, he believed in the Knight Rider mythos and he was the one who took the biggest risks.
More than paying for itself in advance, Ben's strategy has paid off. Knight Rider captured the totality of the 18-49 demographic in Feb. 17. It got extensive coverage in all kinds of media -- enthusiast, general, specialist -- and galvanized literally the whole country on a weekend where not many watched TV.
Back to prototypes and pilots, it's natural for a pilot to have pacing problems, weird characterization (threesome / gay FBI agent), not enough action, cheesy CGI and "all too simple" plot. It's natural and expected. The best of the best in TV shows always have problems with their first episodes. If we take Six Feet Under as an example, the first episode of every season (excluding the very first one) was bad. Sometimes tedious, sometimes confusing, always unsatisfying.
To make matters worse, Knight Rider went against a cult, established and older competitor: itself, twenty-five years ago. DVD sets remain on sale and the classic Knight Rider remains being broadcast. In every second of the new show, fans all around America -- and later, the world -- would (and did) measure it against Knight Rider, 1982.
So the new show succeeds and grabs 13 million viewers. It shatters previous records, this time competing against Hollywood blockbusters, originals and serialized TV movies. Against all the negative criticism, from fans and movie critics alike, it succeeds.
If a flawed, sometimes plodding pilot achieves this, what to say of a well-thought, adequately funded show? What can we expect of something made for fans, by fans but at the same time finally in tune with the 21st century?
In one word... Greatness.
At last.