TVSquad

If you've been watching NBC's Olympic coverage, you must have seen all of the promotion they have been doing for their fall season. New shows My Own Worst Enemy, Crusoe, Knight Rider, Kath & Kim, and America's Toughest Jobs have all had plenty of play. As have the returning Chuck and Life. Given that the latest Olympiad is closing in on becoming the most watched television event of all time, you might think those promo spots were pretty valuable.

Apparently, not so much. The Hollywood Reporter runs down the record for the network promoting new shows during past games. In 2004, the Athens games led to one show, Joey, making it beyond its first season. Likewise for the Sydney games in 2000, which brought us Ed, and nothing else. Things were a little better in 1996 from Atlanta. Profiler, The Pretender, and Suddenly Susan all lasted another four years. Not a stellar track record and it leaves you thinking that those precious spots might have served the network better pitching more beer. It has the makings of a good poll though. After the jump, place your vote for the one new show that will make it out of season one.

Have you thought about creating a MySpace page but thought it was too general and want to make something that's a little more focused, something that celebrates something you're really interested in? You might want to join HoffSpace.

It's the new social network from David Hasselhoff. The Baywatch/Knight Rider/America's Got Talent star has set up a network on his site where fans from around the world can network with each other. Well, I don't think he actually set it up. I doubt he's in front of his computer at midnight doing HTML and making sure the servers are up, but it's on his site (if you're wondering, hoffspace.com is already taken by someone else).

It's coming. The table is set, the players are on the field, the sails are raised, and the pretty maids are all in a row. Of course, I speak of the 2008-09 television schedule. In just a few short weeks viewers will be able to dine on a number of favorite and new dishes that are being served by the networks as well as the increasing number of cable channels who are delving into original programming.

While other fall seasons have come and gone with nary a whimper, this season may be different. Due to the prolonged Writers Strike many shows ended their seasons quite early. Programs like Life, Private Practice, Pushing Daisies, and Heroes haven't aired original episodes since the end of 2007. Heck, there hasn't been a new episode of The Shield since June of last year! So, the beginning of the 2008-09 season will be a second chance for some of these shows, particularly the ones that premiered last season, to show their worth to fans and the networks.

Just to be complete, I wanted to go over a few more tidbits from the NBC executive session with entertainment co-chiefs Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff. We already know about Leno copying Kimmel, and the late night news that came out of it, and we already know about the non-spin-off and the actual spin-off for The Office. But what else did they talk about?

• Life will get two Monday night showings, starting on September 29 at 10 PM ET, which will allow them to premiere Christian Slater's My Own Worst Enemy on October 13, and run it straight through December. Silverman called having that show after Chuck and Heroes a kind of a "male Heroes sandwich."
  

Imagine for a second that Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons was hired to run a television show. Now imagine that the television show was a remake of an old favorite. Sounds like it would make for a pretty impatient press tour panelist, right? Well, that's what we got with Gary Scott Thompson, the new show-runner for Knight Rider.

Thompson answered most of the questions on the panel, and his message to everyone was: remember that two-hour KR movie that aired last year? Forget all about it. The characters may be the same but the story is completely different. What went on before probably won't matter for much. Even KITT is a little different.

Got $299 burning a hole in your pocket? Well you can use that cash to buy yourself a Knight Rider GPS from Mio that uses the actual voice of the original KITT, William Daniels.

The unit also has oscillating red LEDs on either side that mimic the pattern of KITT's speaker-unit from the original series. I think David Hasselhoff is going to get a lot of these around Christmastime.

NBC has issued a press release with the premiere dates for all their fall shows. This way, you know when to set your DVR.

The full press release includes descriptions for each of the shows. New shows are in all caps.

Heroes will be the first scripted show to return with a two-hour premiere on September 22nd. The first new scripted show will be Knight Rider on September 24th (although I don't know if you could count it as new since they already broadcast the two-hour pilot).

Complete schedule after the jump.

Actually, NBC already had its upfront over a month ago. This is a "spotlight event," a Part 2, if you will (a walk-thru set up at 30 Rock for advertisers and the media), but they did make some interesting announcements today.

This biggest announcement (though hardly a surprise at this point) was that Jimmy Fallon will take over on Late Night when Conan O'Brien takes over for Jay Leno. This will happen next year.

Here are some of the other announcements made at today's even and a recap of the new shows and the shows that have been canceled. And in this post, I promise not to fail you, rainbow chicken.

NBC unveiled their new schedule today, weeks ahead of all of the other networks, and here are some highlights of their "52-week schedule".

New shows: My Own Worst Enemy, with Christian Slater as a spy (Monday at 10); the island adventure series Crusoe (Friday at 8); the Molly Shannon sitcom Kath & Kim (Tuesday at 9:30); and the remake of Knight Rider (Wednesday at 8). The new drama The Philanthropist will air in the My Own Worst Enemy's time slot in the winter. Two other dramas will also debut in the winter: Kings (with Ian McShane) and Merlin, as will the reality show America's Toughest Jobs.

Returning: 30 Rock, Medium, The Office, Celebrity Apprentice, Life, Chuck, Heroes, Dateline, Deal Or No Deal, My Name Is Earl, America's Got Talent, Last Comic Standing, Nashville Star, The Biggest Loser, American Gladiators, SNL, ER, Law and Order, and Law and Order: SVU.

Gone: Scrubs (probably moving to ABC), Bionic Woman, Amnesia, 1 vs. 100, Journeyman.

Well, here's hoping that the powers that be were reading TV Squad after the two-hour Knight Rider movie premiered last February. Then, at least they'll know how to fix the show, because NBC has picked up Knight Rider as a series for the 2008-2009 schedule, and it's going to need some re-tooling.

That's the phrase they love to use in the business to describe all the work that's needed to turn a turkey -- albeit one with great ratings -- into a successful series. And Knight Rider, as conceived in that TV movie/back door pilot, needs some major work.

Battlestar Galactica has spoiled us all.

I say that because, since the excellent "re-imagining" of the craptastic '70s scifi series hit the air, we expect the remakes of our favorite shows to be darker, more layered, and more complicated than the originals. But sometimes, going darker doesn't always work: take a look at the failure pile that passed for the Bionic Woman remake as the best example of that. So, when a "25 years later" return of Knight Rider was announced, I half wondered if they were going to go the BSG route and make it all serious. But I equally wondered if they would go the other way and make it a modern camp classic, sort of the way the original, Hoff-injected series was.

Turns out, the answer was "none of the above." Mostly the movie / backdoor pilot that aired last night was dull, with a few fleeting moments of camp thrown in. But it never made me clamor for the show to return as a series.

• At 7, CBS has a new 60 Minutes, then a new Big Brother, a new Cold Case, and an episode of Dexter.
• ABC has a new America's Funniest Home Videos, then a new, two hour Extreme Makeover and a new Brothers & Sisters.
• NBC has a new, two hour American Gladiators at 7, then the new Knight Rider movie.
• The CW has a new CW Now at 7.
• At 8, FOX has a new Simpsons, then new episodes of King of the Hill, Family Guy, and American Dad.
• PBS has a new Nature at 8, followed by a new Masterpiece.
• At 8:30, TNT has the NBA All-Star Game.
• At 9, HBO has a new episode of The Wire, then a new Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam.
• There's a new episode of The L Word on Showtime at 9.
• At 10, AMC has a new Breaking Bad.
• At 11:45, Cartoon Network has a new Aqua Teen Hunger Force, then a new Squidbillies.

Check your local TV listings for more.

In the movie Batman Forever, Val Kilmer as Batman said "Chicks love the car." There he was talking about the Batmobile, but maybe he was being prophetic, too. Kilmer has just signed to replace Will Arnett as the voice of KITT in the forthcoming NBC Knight Rider telefilm/back-door pilot. I want you to note that in the original link, they've been very generous in picture selection for Mr. Kilmer, as his waist size and age have apparently been running neck and neck the last several years. This article chose a more recent picture, and right now we're all thankful he's only doing voice work on the film.

Knight Rider premieres in 10 days (02-17-2008) and Arnett had completed all of the voice work already. Apparently, as our own Kristin witnessed first-hand, the new KITT is a Ford Mustang and Arnett had done some GM commercial work before so it would be blasphemy to let him voice a Ford car. BLASPHEMY!!

I know, you woke up in the middle of the night last night in a cold sweat and wondered, why is the new Knight Rider car a Mustang?

Davis Bartis, who is the executive producer on the new NBC remake of the 80s show, says that there is no Trans Am available like the original, so they went with the Ford Mustang, which he thinks is "the coolest car out there." So now, not only will K.I.T.T. have a new voice (Arrested Development's Will Arnett, taking over for William Daniels), the car itself will be completely new.

I'm sure that someone, somewhere is annoyed that, with the release of the new Knight Rider, NBC is completely ignoring the Knight Rider continuity established in Knight Rider 2000 and Knight Rider 2010. If you're that person, I'd highly suggest a) not following the link and b) finding the help you so desperately need.

For the rest of us, enjoy this teaser trailer for the new Knight Rider series. There's not much to be gleaned from it except the obvious: KITT is no longer a TransAM, but rather a Ford Mustang. The other big news that might come as a shocker (Spoiler Warning): it's no longer Michael driving KITT, it's Mike. That's right, Knight Rider, welcome to the name-shortening 21st century!

There are other questions that we can only guess at until the show premiers in February...