SciFi Stream

Looks like “Smallville” and “Supernatural” may have some actual competition this week for the bottom of the genre ratings pack. “Knight Rider” pulled in by far its smallest audience ever, earning a 3.3 rating/5 share, according to Fast National ratings from Nielsen Media Research. That rating was 25 percent off its 4.4/7 last week, and its audience was just 3 percent higher than “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” this week. The plunge was so deep for “Knight Rider,” the show’s season average actually fell from a 4.5 rating to a 4.3 rating in just one week, while its Stability Index Rating — where SyFy Portal compares the average overnight rating against its highest overnight rating — slipped below the 90 percentile to an 87.8. Only “Fringe” and “Life On Mars” on ABC …

KITT or baseball. Baseball or KITT. Looks like fans preferred to see the Philadelphia Phillies defeat the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 1 of the World Series rather than seeing yet another wacky adventure of Michael Knight and his talking car. “Knight Rider,” fresh off of receiving a full-season pickup by NBC, earned a 4.4 rating/7 share, according to Fast National ratings from Nielsen Media Research. That’s down more than 10 percent from its pre-Presidential debate spike last week, and is floating around the average rating of a 4.5/7 after five episodes. It was easily beat by not only the World Series on Fox, but also the comedy block on CBS. “Knight Rider” did beat “Pushing Daisies,” Zap2it reports, which earned an estimated 4.0/6, down 4.8 percent from the previous week. “Pushing Daisies,” …

Full season orders are rolling in for genre shows, despite the fact that none have ratings that are turning any heads. The latest is NBC’s “Knight Rider,” getting even more than “Bionic Woman” did in its timeslot last year, despite lower ratings. Of course, “Bionic Woman” was interrupted by the Writers Guild of America strike, but a pickup this week is great news for KITT fans. The show has averaged a 4.6 rating/7 share in overnights over its first four weeks, down more than 16 percent from the average “Bionic Woman” had in the same timeslot. The show, however, has been leading in the key demographic of adults 18 to 49, and also has consistently beat “Pushing Daisies” on ABC, which some would say has a much higher profile than “Knight Rider.” The order follows similar “back nine” …

NBC has picked up Knight Rider for a full season, sources told The Hollywood Reporter.

It’s not the most encouraging move a network can make, but ordering more scripts is better than the ultimate alternative: cancellation. That seems to be what both “Knight Rider” and “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” are trying to stave off despite lower-than-anticipated ratings and a mostly hushed reaction from the networks. However, NBC has ordered an additional four scripts of “Knight Rider,” trade publication Variety says, while reports are out that two more scripts have been ordered by Fox for “Sarah Connor,” a show that is considered to be on the brink of cancellation. Fox made the move to order more “Sarah Connor” scripts despite already ordering a full season pickup for freshman drama “Fringe” and canceling the comedy “Do Not Disturb.” Script ordering is usually …

NBC has ordered four more scripts of its new SF series Knight Rider from Universal Media Studios, Variety reported.

Audiences might not be too much into either show, but in a head-to-head battle between “Knight Rider” on NBC and “Pushing Daisies” on ABC, it looks like KITT is taking the trophy. “Knight Rider” scored an estimated 4.2 rating/6 share, according to Fast National ratings from Nielsen Media Research Wednesday, easily beating a 3.6/6 from “Pushing Daisies,” Zap2it says. Both shows were behind “Bones” on Fox as well as comedies on CBS, and finished ahead only of “America’s Next Top Model” on The CW. But for “Pushing Daisies,” its audience was only 29 percent better. Both shows have slipped a bit in the ratings, “Knight Rider” off 8.7 percent from the previous week while “Pushing Daisies” is down 12.2. Also, the 9 p.m. hour for ABC was able to find an audience pickup of 39 percent …

The following contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the “Knight Of The Iguana” episode of NBC’s “Knight Rider. It’s not that this show is bad, really. It’s that it is so … standard … pedestrian … predictable … uninteresting that makes it hard to watch. Don’t get me wrong. I like the actors, the characters, the cars, the explosions, the skin … lots and lots of skin. It is what they do with all this that bores me. Here’s a good example. The episode opens with a dark headquarters, with Michael looking for “the enemy,” as KITT calls him. Michael pussyfoots around, looking for someone to shoot. Is it a double agent? Is it a bad guy with a nuclear warhead trying to destroy KITT? Is it an alien from outer space? No, it turns out to be Billy with a Super Soaker. The worst thing that happens …

“Pushing Daisies” has joined a long list of returning genre shows clocking in at far more disappointing numbers than expected after its premiere was beaten out by none other than “Knight Rider” on NBC. The ABC series earned a 4.1 rating/7 share Wednesday, being easily bested by “Knight Rider’s” 4.6/7, revealed Fast National ratings from Nielsen Media Research. It was ABC’s worst-performing show for the night, thanks to a 34 percent audience boost from its lead-out, “Private Practice,” and a 4.8/8 from “Dirty Sexy Money.” That is the smallest audience that has ever tuned in for an episode of “Pushing Daisies,” nearly 13 percent less than its worst rating last season. It’s also down 35 percent from its first season average of 6.3/10, which made it the genre’s third-highest ranking …

This review contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the “Knight Rider” episode “Journey to the End of the Knight.” But go ahead and read it anyway, because you’ll probably thank me later. As I watched the masterpiece that was “Knight Rider” Wednesday night when I was doing show prep for SyFy Radio, only one thought came to mind. When is “Bionic Woman” coming back? While that line definitely adds a little bit of humor to a dire situation, I’m actually being serious. If Ben Silverman, the head of NBC, came to us, the genre audience, last spring and said, “Either watch ‘Bionic Woman’ or here is what we’ll give you,” I would’ve started the first fan campaign ever devised to save a crappy show. What stinks about this is that I want to like “Knight Rider.” I mean, this was the show that replaced …

The following contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the premiere episode of “Knight Rider” on NBC. Let me start out by saying that I’m a “vehicle” fan. Even though I can’t rebuild an engine or identify what’s wrong when my car breaks down, I love the looks of modes of transportation, including cars, starships, planes and trains. So I already like the new KITT and its many Transformer-like shapes. The question is, will the show reviving one I was tepid about when it first aired be something special? Sadly, the answer is, “No.” At least, the first episode left me cold. Here’s what happened this week. Mike Traceur, son of Michael Knight (the original KITT driver), is now a full-fledged secret agent, complete with tuxedo, and he and flame Sarah Graiman are infiltrating an organization to get secrets …

NBC’s Knight Rider finished in third place in the ratings in its Sept. 24 premiere, according to The Hollywood Reporter.