Well, last night was the much anticipated (by me anyway) premier of the new Knight Rider movie/backdoor pilot.

In a nutshell, I liked it.

Like most pilots though, there were a good few rough edges. The first hour or so, the creators stuck with what everyone was tuning in for. KITT was very much centre stage, and there was an awful lot of beauty shots of the car. Which is good. This is Knight Rider, and ultimately we’re all there for the cool car.

The movie ultimately relied a lot on car chase sequences, with few big stunts or gizmos from KITT thrown in (no turbo boost here). However I felt the movie still did a good job of showcasing the Knight 3000’s abilities, with its camoflage, and constant hacking of security systems to aid Mike and Sarah, even when KITT wasn’t physically with them.

Kilmer’s voice clicked well as KITT, although at times I did find the odd line a bit flat, and, given the trailer footage, did find myself wondering what seeing Will Arnett’s take for the full pilot would’ve been like.

But, as I said, it had some rough edges. While the writer’s (wisely) cited last year’s Transformers as an influence, with its relationship between Sam and Bumblebee, this missed the mark in the pilot. Mike is left as a background figure a bit too long, and doesn’t really get much chance to build a relationship with KITT. Instead, Sarah is given far more focus for the first half hour or so, which was understandable for the setup, but still, it was to the detriment of Mike’s character.

The big issue for me though, was that after having centre stage for the first hour, KITT then vanishes for the final 20 minutes after his system is hacked, only cropping up again at the very end. Sadly, the plot had had an awful lot of KITT, Sarah and Mike driving through the mountains for the first hour, and so the supercar had to be shoved out of the way to make room for some rapid characterisation in the final 20 minutes.

This was also done to add a sense of danger, and make the car vunerable, but I can’t help but feel this could’ve still been accomplished while still having KITT as a prescence in the final scenes. It was established that his system had been hacked, so it would’ve been an easy explanation that this had affected his self-regeneration properties.

However, on balance I still enjoyed it. Pilots invariably have rough edges, and there’s definitely scope for this to have some legs if it makes it to a full series. The scene with Michael Knight at the end promises a return for the character, and the final scene sets us up with a more classic Knight Rider feel: the support crew (this time on a plane instead of a semi), and Mike and KITT, driving out solo. Mike’s best friend being present screams “dodgy comedy sidekick” though, and is something they should be wary of should this get picked up for a full season. Likewise, they need to bring the humour out a bit more. Some funny lines and scenes were there, but they could do with being more prominent.

I leave you with the new opening credits with the new theme. A nice touch, as most pilots don’t bother making up a proper set of opening credits.

The last episode of Journeyman aired last week. The announcer told us it’d be back next season, but clearly someone at Sky hasn’t been doing their research, since the show was axed in the states due to poor ratings.

I’m actually pretty gutted it was axed. Its been quite a strong season for Sci-Fi programmes this year from the States, but sadly, be it low-ratings or the writer’s strike, a lot of them have either been axed (Journeyman, Bionic Woman) or have an uncertain future (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles).

Journeyman was a great show. Although initially seeming like a modern day version of Quantum Leap, the show really broke away from this by focusing on events on the present day. While the main character Dan travelled back in time to fix people’s lives, the writers cleverly kept focussed on the effect this would have on his life in the present day. We see his wife struggling to adapt to the new situation, with Dan disappearing back in time, his brother becoming suspicious that Dan’s gambling addiction has resurfaced, and we also get Dan’s attempts to discover what is happening to him and why.

The show certainly seemed to lay a lot of groundwork that presumably would’ve been picked up in a second season. Its a shame now that we’ll never discover who the rogue FBI agent was working for, or see if my pet theory about Dan’s father being a time traveller would be confirmed.

For anyone that didn’t catch the show on its first airing, its definitely worth checking out.