KITT can still get up to speed.

Sunday's new Knight Rider TV movie placed eighth in Nielsen Media Research's latest weekly rankings.

The two-hour special, an ostensive pilot for a series redo, did even better among advertiser- and NBC-coveted young adults. In the 18-49-year-old demographic, the show finished fifth, behind only American Idol, The Moment of Truth and Lost.

NBC called Knight Rider the most watched TV movie among that audience set since Oprah Winfrey and Halle Berry threw their collective star power behind 2005's Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Overall, the show averaged 12.7 million viewers who heard Val Kilmer debut as the voice of KITT, and witnessed David Hasselhoff figuratively hand over Michael Knight's car keys to former soap star Justin Bruening.

Whether KITT has more miles in it remains to be seen. NBC, which aired the original Knight Rider from 1982 to 1986, has been too busy bragging about the TV movie's numbers to issue any announcements about a new series.

NBC's last effort at updating a decades-old TV series was Bionic Woman.

Sometimes these things work out and, um, sometimes they don't.

Here are last week's other rating highlights:

• The good news for American Idol was that the Hollywood audition round was its biggest draw since the season premiere (first place, 30 million). The troubling news was that the show's unveiling of the 24 semifinalists was its least-watched episode of the season (second place, 24.8 million).
• On Sunday night, the youngsters helped make the season closer of NBC's American Gladiators (41st place, 7.3 million) a top 25 hit among 18- to 49-year-olds, but grandma would not be denied her Andy Rooney, helping make an overall top 10 hit of CBS' 60 Minutes (ninth place, 12.5 million).
• Judged against its premiere in January, the Gladiators finale actually sorta tanked, with the show losing nearly 5 million viewers from season start to finish. The penultimate episode did put up stronger numbers in the show's usual Monday time slot (24th place, 8.8 million; 11th place in the 18-49 demo).
• ABC's Lost (fourth place, 13.8 million) was the top scripted show; ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (fifth place, 13.5 million) was the top reality show; Fox's The Moment of Truth (third place, 14 million) was the top show to follow American Idol.
• Launching its first-ever regular-season run on Tuesday, Big Brother (47th place, 6.9 million) "improved upon last summer's...debut," CBS said.
• Should Jericho fans be concerned that the drama series' second-season debut (44th place, 7.1 million) was down nearly 40 percent from its first-season opener? Concerned, maybe, but not panicked. CBS, after all, did find the show worthy of inclusion in its weekly ratings release, unlike the just as modestly watched Welcome to the Captain (45th place, 7 million).
• Excuse Dexter for gawking. The serial-killer series has never seen so many sets of eyeballs before (30th place, 8.2 million in the Showtime series' CBS debut).
• Candace Bushnell's Lipstick Jungle (60th place, 6 million) is trumping Darren Star's like-dressed Cashmere Mafia (64th place, 5.3 million), which, statistically speaking, is better than nothing. 
• In a rough season for award shows, the 39th NAACP Image Awards (83rd place, 3.8 million) was almost on par with last year's Fox broadcast. It did, however, post the ceremony's third smallest TV audience ever. 
• The move to the CW took something out of the expiring Girlfriends (114th place, 1.7 million for its first episode; 110th place, 1.9 million for its second episode). Like viewers.
• In daytime, Whoopi Goldberg's mouth has proved a suitable replacement for Rosie O'Donnell's. Through the week of Feb. 4, the latest data available, the chatty talk show was up a tad from last year, averaging 3.6 million weekly viewers compared to 3.5 million.
• In cable, basketball ruled, led by TNT's coverage of the NBA All-Star Game, which averaged 6.3 million, up 31 percent from last year's contest.
• USA's Monk (5.6 million) was the top scripted show; Bravo's Project Runway (3.8 million) was top the Sweet P-squashing reality show. 
• Scott Baio isn't getting older, he's getting bigger. Last year, Scott Baio Is 45...and Single averaged 1.3 million viewers. Last week's Scott Baio Is 46...and Pregnant averaged 1.6 million.

Overall, in the network race, Fox declared itself "America's favorite," and because it had millions more total viewers (11.5 million) and 18-49-year-old viewers than anybody else, there wasn't much of an argument. Cursing under the breath, yes, but no real arguing.

In cable, USA was the top prime-time network (2.3 million), followed by TNT (2.1 million) and Disney (1.8 million).

Here's a look at the 10 most watched broadcast network prime-time shows for the week ended Sunday, according to Nielsen Media Research:

1. American Idol (Tuesday), Fox, 30 million viewers
2. American Idol (Wednesday), Fox, 24.8 million viewers
3. The Moment of Truth, Fox, 14 million viewers
4. Lost, ABC, 13.8 million viewers
5. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, ABC, 13.5 million viewers
6. Survivor: Micronesia, CBS, 13.2 million viewers
7. Deal or No Deal (Monday), NBC, 13.1 million viewers
8. Knight Rider (NBC Movie of the Week), NBC, 12.7 million viewers
9. 60 Minutes, CBS, 12.5 million viewers
10. Deal or No Deal (Thursday), NBC, 12.2 million viewers