The Cleveland Show picked up, Knight Rider retooled
By fred | November 10, 2008
* Yes, Family Guy spin-off The Cleveland Show has been picked up by Fox for a full season order… for Fall 2009! Not that the show, coming from Seth MacFarlane (already behind Family Guy or American Dad), wasn’t going to get a full season order anyways, but the back-nine order is there already, even though not one single episode aired. And that’s not really going to change any time soon, either, because Fox also revealed that the show wouldn’t be seen until next fall, making it the first pickup of next season !
Star of the show Cleveland already reacted, commenting that “Fox picking up nine more episodes of our show is proof that an African-American can make it in this country. This is a milestone for the United States of America.”
* KITT is being retooled, like that’s gonna change anything. It’s been said that Knight Rider had been undergoing major changes, in an attempt to bring the show closer to its root. Meaning that instead of having a team of 42 people working with the talking car, and the whole crew fighting a new terrorist each week, they’ll try to go back to what the original show was.
Executive producer/showrunner Gary Scott Thompson said they wanted to make the show “about a man and his car going out and helping more regular people, everymen“, except that unlike in the original there will still be a lot more people : if three regulars have been removed - Sydney Tamiia Poitier (Carrie), Yancey Arias (Alex) and Bruce Davison (Charles) - four are still in, Justin Bruening (Mike), Deanna Russo (Sarah), Paul Campbell (Billy) and Smith Cho (Zoe). Sounds very much like “a man and his car” to me too…
Not that those changes are bad in themselves, of course such a large cast and the way episodes were constructed the show were stupid, but that’s really not gonna be enough to save this crap. I’m not even sure killing everyone involved and starting again from scratch would have been enough, but anyways.
Last Wednesday the sixth episode of the show dropped to a series-low with only 5.1 million viewers and 1.6 on the demo, but those changes have been in the work for some time already, and should be seen as soon as episode 10. And because this show is pure crap, NBC is considering giving it a push by airing episode 10 (first of a two-parter) on a Sunday right after an NFL game in January, with the second part (episode 11) on its regular slot.
Because if there’s a show on NBC lineup right now that could use such help, it’s surely Knight Rider of course. Gosh I hate NBC… Oh and, the producers also said there were looking to do stunt guest castings, because everybody does it so why not them, too? (Though if they want to do such crap, better do it here indeed…)
Posted in News
Shows: Cleveland, Knight Rider
