Anytime I sit down to write anything, that initial idea is always the hardest part. Especially in the middle of a season of television, when you’ve just wrapped shooting on your last episode, so you’re already kind of beat up and exhausted and you get into the office the next morning and sit down at your desk and there’s this eerie calm as you set up your laptop and stare at that blank screen and think, “Oh man, I am so screwed…”

But then, you have a coffee and bang your head against the wall for a while and talk to your fellow writers and somehow you get an idea: What if a plane went missing? Okay, that’s something. And what if Kitt, for the first time since we started the show, takes the initiative and gets Mike up at four in the morning to investigate instead of the other way around? That could be fun. And what if when Mike and Kitt arrive at the spot where the transponder failed, the plane had crashed! Cool. But then what? Okay, maybe the plane crash isn’t a real plane crash, maybe it’s been faked! But why would anyone fake a plane crash…?

And onwards and onwards until hopefully you’ve got a story that doesn’t suck.

So, “Fly By Knight.” A missing 8 year old witness. A distraught mother. Both brilliantly played by Bobby Coleman and Bellamy Young, respectively. A ruthless and intelligent bad guy, wonderfully brought to life by Benjamín Benítez. And another interesting antagonist for our hero to battle, the ever diligent extremely agitating Agent Renning, played with fantastic bitchy authority by the lovely and talented Maria Menounos. I had Jay Chandrasekhar (of Super Troopers, among other great comedies) directing, who not only did a great job, but was just fun to hang with. And I was surprised to learn (much to the dismay of Master Key, our visual effects team) this episode had as many VFX shots in it as anything since the first episode we shot, and may I say they all came out looking great.

Oh, and there was the 69 Mach II Mustang, which will speak for itself when you see it.

What else can I tell you? I think, looking back at those first moments of panic, this episode turned out kinda great. It’s certainly my favorite Kitt stuff so far, as this learning intelligence starts to come into its (his?) own, make some decisions, rebel a little bit against the powers that be, do some growing up. Hopefully there will be much more of that in his (there, I said it) future.

As always, thanks for watching,
D

Tonight's episode was a tough one. On a number of levels. Allow me to explain.

As I’m sure you know by now, “Day Turns Into Knight” is the second half of a two-part episode. Rob Wright wrote the first half, did a fantastic job, leaving our heroes in as dire a situation as he could conjure: the warehouse blown up and Carrie down; Mike and Kitt forced to act as the couriers of a nuclear bomb; and a madman vanished with one African Ambassador. Sounds great, right? It was. Except that then it became my job to figure out how to fix everything.

I mean, what would you do? Oh, and did I mention you have create a graceful and meaningful exit for two main characters? People you know and care about and cast in the show in the first place?

Like I said, tough on a number of levels, but I think we all rose to the challenge, and so here we are, with “Day Turns Into Knight.” I was re-teamed with director Allan Kroeker, who shot the hell out of my first episode and outdid himself with this second one. The action looks great. The performances are right on. The pacing is fast and steady. It works, and I owe a lot of that to Mr. Kroeker.

The opening sequence with “Speeded Kitt” our stunt unit shot over two days on a freeway we shut down in Long Beach, and I think it’s some of the best practical stunt work we’ve seen on this show yet. We didn’t actually land a plane on a highway (land a what on a what?! you'll see) but we didn’t have to, because our VFX team came up huge in a timeframe that is basically asking the impossible. All of our actors turned in stellar performances (for further examples see Smith hold her own with Richard Roundtree; John Briddell as the stern yet caring ‘Dr. Yost’; and Rick Hoffman being, well, Rick Hoffman) but especially the ones we were saying goodbye to, which made their departures all that much more difficult.

Isn’t there some old saying, about how the things in life that are the most difficult end up being the most rewarding? I’d say that sums up this episode for me. Made me proud to be part of this show, to see what it’s capable of. And I think you’ll understand what I mean when you watch it.

DA

About 14 months ago NBC approached myself, Dave Bartis and Doug Liman about reinventing one of the most iconic franchises in the history of television. About two days after that we were on board, and an obscenely short amount of time after that we were shooting a two hour “back door pilot” to air in February. The five months from that first phone call to the air-date were the fastest, most stressful and engrossing of my life. I was proud of the movie, it did well, and now here we are, with a lot of the same faces and even more new ones, to bring you the series.

And it’s been a blast. To be perfectly blunt with you, this is a big show, and far as I’m concerned, the more help the better. So GST was hired to come in and steer the ship. Great writers. More great crew. And more great actors. We’re having fun, and you know why?

Because Knight Rider is fun. Or, at least, it should be. But in addition to fun there have to be stakes, or else why do we care? So when I sat down to write my episode I decided I wanted to see Mike really get pushed to the brink, and watch our team rally around him.

So, my episode, “A Hard Day’s Knight”.

We start with an exhausted Mike, returning from one mission when he’s assigned another, trying to balance his life and his job, maintain some sense of being a normal 20-something (which, let’s be honest, he isn’t). So he’s given a seemingly simple assignment, which of course goes wrong…and I mean, really wrong. We start the ticking clock, and even though one man can make a difference, he can’t make it alone (like I said, more help the better, right?). So Mike’s life is in the hands of his new team, and he has to have faith in those people, to be there for him, to care about him as we do, to help him get through an awfully tough day.

I won’t spoil the ending, except to tell you that, Yes, Mike does die. Maybe they bring him back, and maybe they don’t, but I’ll tell you this: I think you’ll enjoy waiting to find out.