NBC Photo: Mitchell HaasethMichael Knight is making Jaime Sommers look good.
NBC's Knight Rider redo got off to a slow start last night, scoring only 7.3 million viewers, Nielsen Media Research estimates said.
Another new show, the Fox comedy Do Not Disturb (3.5 million), ran dead last in its time slot among the big-four network competition—and got yanked for it.
Knight Rider's debut could be called comparable to another failed NBC revamp, except it was much worse. On a Wednesday night last September, the network's new Bionic Woman started off with 13.9 million viewers; with an assist from the writers' strike, the series ended only seven episodes later.
In the 8 p.m. time slot, Knight Rider ran third in viewers, behind ABC's Ted McGinley-shunning Dancing With the Stars (15.6 million) and Fox's Bones (9.6 million). The show likewise ran third among 18- to 49-year-olds.
The car-powered series did perform better among men ages 18-49 and 18-34. But it struck out with teenagers who treated the 26-year-old property as if it were a CBS comedy about middle-aged divorcees.
Knight Rider also suffered in comparison to itself, or rather to the TV movie that relaunched the franchise last February. That show finished the week in the top 10 with 12.7 million viewers.
For those who track karma, it's worth noting that Knight Rider, the successful TV movie, featured a cameo by David Hasselhoff, the star of the original popular 1980s series, who initially wasn't part of the struggling new show's plans. (Of late, NBC and Hasselhoff were said to be in talks.)
If there was a bright side to the new Knight Rider's dark night, it was that the series wasn't called Gary Unmarried (6.8 million).
The new Jay Mohr sitcom, one of the aforementioned CBS shows about middle-aged divorcees, tanked, right alongside its comedy-block companion, The New Adventures of Old Christine (6.7 million), which presumably longed for its old Monday-night time slot.
Elsewhere, a 15-minute speech by President Bush messed with the 9 p.m. hour, at least in the time zones where the address was aired in prime time. Basically, though, CBS ruled the hour with Criminal Minds (15.1 million).
Do Not Disturb, which has aired just three times at 9:30 p.m., is the second Fox fall show to get the hook. The game show Hole in the Wall has been yanked from tonight's schedule in favor of a second episode of Kitchen Nightmares. Fox's official line is that Do Not Disturb has been "pre-empted for next week."
At 10 p.m. last night, the second-season opener of NBC's Lipstick Jungle (6.1 million) made Knight Rider look good.
From 9 to 11 p.m., ABC scored about 7.8 million viewers for David Blaine: Dive of Death, believed to be the best numbers ever for a show about a guy hanging upside down. Oddly enough, the premise seemed to wear out its welcome, with the special losing more than 2 million viewers from its first hour to its last.
Overall, CBS (12.5 million) won Wednesday, followed by ABC (10.4 million) and NBC (7.9 million), which owes the Hasselhoff-graced America's Got Talent (10.2 million) for salvaging the night.
But not the Knight.
(Originally published Sept. 25, 2008 at 11:42 a.m. PT.)