New Set Reports at KRO

The lucky folks over at Knight Rider Online have been invited back onto the set of the currently-filming season finale, Exit Light, Enter Knight, and had an opportunity to speak to the cast and crew about what we can expect from the remaining episodes after the reboot, and NBC's worrying decision to bring production to an early finish.

"The show is not cancelled," Gary Scott Thompson tells them. "We're doing a reboot, and a lot of people don't know this but NBC cut a lot of costs by cutting episodes on a lot of shows, but also laid off 750 people in their production offices and their other offices, so this is a cost cutting measure, not a cancellation measure." Thompson encourages fans of the show to write in to the network to show their support for Knight Rider.

"We're making [the show] more like the original one," Justin Bruening says of the reboot. "The natural progression of the story is that it just becomes more like the original. It's K.I.T.T. and I, and we're on the road and I'm the only person K.I.T.T. really needs. I drive around, I find a mission, I solve it. It's smaller crimes, you know, I'm not trying to save the world each week."

Writers Rachel Mellon and Teresa Huang agree. "It's very exciting," Rachel explains. "It's more like the original where it's a guy in a car saving the world, or saving the little guy, depending on the week and the writer." Teresa Huang adds, "I think it's really going to bring a lot to the show because it's simplifying all the elements. We thought very big at the beginning of the show, and I think we saw that it's really the smaller stories, the saving the guy of the week, saving the everyman that's exciting to us."

One episode that fans are anxiously waiting for is the twelfth installment, Knight to King's Pawn, which features the return of K.A.R.R. Justin can't hide his excitement over it: "He's a scary mofo, let me tell you," Justin says. "It's epic, it's huge. It's bigger than [the season finale]. I can't say anything because it might give it away... I'm just gonna tell you it's K.I.T.T. Vs. K.A.R.R. That's it. And that's not even the big part of it." He describes the showdown as being "like 20 rounds with Tyson, it's awesome. Take the original K.I.T.T. Vs. K.A.R.R. and multiply that by a thousand, it's nuts. And I'm stuck in the middle of it."

The finale looks to be filled with action: a beat-up Justin says that he is involved in several fight sequences and rides a motorcycle, while around 4000 rounds of ammunition were expended in an exterior scene involving K.I.T.T.!

Knight Rider Online: GST Says KR NOT Cancelled

Knight Rider Online: Knight Writers On Set Interview

Knight Rider Online: Justin Bruening On The Set

On This Day: 19th November, 1982

26 years ago today, K.A.R.R. burst onto the scene! Created by writer and producer Steven E. de Souza, K.I.T.T.'s not-so-friendly prototype was the focus of the ninth episode of the series, and the segment that cemented the series' popularity and saved it from cancellation. In his autobiography, David Hasselhoff says:

"We were in danger of cancellation when Jan McCormack [David's manager] contacted her connections at Universal and pleaded, 'Give us another four weeks.' She got us a reprieve and in those four weeks we pulled things around, thanks largely to an episode called Trust Doesn't Rust in which writer Steven de Souza introduced K.I.T.T.'s evil twin K.A.R.R.

"Trust Doesn't Rust was probably the best episode of the first season and one of the best in the series' entire run. It certainly was the Jekyll and Hyde of talking cars. In December, Knight Rider got better numbers for NBC on Friday nights at 9 pm than its twenty-six previous shows in that slot."

K.A.R.R. would return in 1984's classic K.I.T.T. Vs. K.A.R.R., and is due to return in the new series' episode Knight to King's Pawn!

Knight Writers Updated

The Knight Writers Blog has been updated last night with a behind-the-scenes perspective of last night's show. Knight of the Living Dead was originally supposed to air on 29th October, a couple of days before Halloween, but unfortunately it was preempted to make room for President-Elect Obama's commercial. Even more unfortunately, another tie-in was nixed by the move to November:

"October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and Ford and Knight Rider partnered to make Kitt one of their "Warriors in Pink" for this very special cause. This limited edition Warriors in Pink Mustang is for sale at many dealerships across the country, and proceeds from the sale of each one are donated to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. You can find out more about this project and other Warriors in Pink at "the Ford Warriors in Pink website."

GST also teases about the return of K.A.R.R. (to be seen in the episode Knight to King's Pawn), and reveals that more content is on its way to the Knight Industries Research website. You just had to be paying attention when Sarah entered her father's password into the computer.

Knight Writers: Knight of the Living Dead

It's Official -- K.A.R.R. Returning to Knight Rider!

Preparations are being made for the next episode to enter production, currently titled Knight To King's Pawn. This site attempts to remain spoiler-free, but I can reveal that the first Knight Industries vehicle, K.A.R.R. is re-activated! Expect a lot of buzz around this show -- the twelfth episode -- which if everything goes according to plan should air in December!

Keep your scanners peeled for more!

KITTSite Interview Dave Bartis

KITTSite.com have just finished rolling out their San Diego Comic-Con interviews, and last but not least is Knight Rider producer Dave Bartis. He has some interesting things to say about the series versus February's TV movie, about the new series versus the original, and about the possible return of fan-favourite K.A.R.R.

He says of the new episodes, "It is feature quality action, and it's fun, aspirational escapist storytelling. To me, I can't come home from a hard day at work and sit down and watch something as intense as The Sopranos; I need to prepare myself for that. But this is fun. It's something you can watch with your whole family. My kids happen to think this is the coolest thing I've ever done. They've never said that about anything I've ever done before. So, I could watch the show with my nine-year-old. My wife liked it, and my parents actually liked it -- this is truly an 8 o'clock broadcast show."

KITTSite.com: Dave Bartis Interview