The new BSG has far more fans and a larger audience than the original? I hope you were joking because the new one has a fraction of the audience the original had. I'm not a fan of either version yet I still know that. Seriously, it's a show on cable that gets around two million viewers, which is good for the Sci-Fi Channel but would be an absolute joke on broadcast television, even some other cable networks, like its sister channel the USA Network, routinely pull in significantly better numbers than that. Nevermind the fact that 30 years ago the market was a lot more limited to where the big three networks of the time (ABC, NBC and CBS) were the only networks widely available with cable still in its infancy. The original BSG was the top rated show in its time slot that was canceled due to its astronomical budget, to say the new show has far more fans and audience than the original is at best, ignorance and at worst fanboyism. Besides that, I'm sure that many of the fans of it were fans of the original as well. Critic popularity? Certainly and I'm sure there's a lot of fans outside the US also, but even with all those combined I doubt it would match up to the audience the original had when it was first on television.
Now on to the other thing, the current version of BSG was always marketed as a re-imagining that had little to nothing to do with the original other than names. The new Knight Rider was marketed as a continuation of the original series from the start. The two cannot be compared because of this. Only a fool would want the new series to be a carbon copy of the original and of the hardcore fans THEY ARE A MINORITY. Most of them aren't really hardcore fans in the first place, many are just borderline trolls, especially the ones begging for it to be canceled.
To the real fans it was never about making the show a carbon copy of the original, it's been about the show actually carrying on the spirit, message and ideals of the original as well as having the "heart" of it as well. Unfortunately most of the first nine episodes completely missed the mark due to the powers that be (in this case Gary Scott Thompson and most of the writers) being absolutely clueless in what the audience was looking for and turned off many of the original series fans and potential new fans alike and that has been reflected in the ratings. They tried to make it "their own" with a healthy amount of "borrowing" from a dozen different things other than Knight Rider.
I'm willing to wager that a good percentage of the viewing audience that's left is made up of viewers that were first and foremost fans of the original series and/or their children. The original Knight Rider isn't some show that up and died after it's initial run ended roughly 23 years ago, it was and still is kept alive due to world wide syndication and later with the DVD set releases, Knight Rider's fanbase isn't limited to those of us who saw the original show as young children 23-26 years ago. Knight Rider is still on TV in the US now and pretty much has been on one network or another since it ended its initial run. It ran on the USA Network for several years on and off, it was on Sci-Fi for a good while also and is now apparently on Sleuth. Then there's other local channels that carried it over the years also.
You seem to underestimate just how big Knight Rider was and still is world wide. Hasselhoff commented one time that Knight Rider was more popular around the world than Baywatch, which is still in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most watched show of all time. Why do you think the TV movie last year did as well as it did and why those numbers weren't repeated when it went to series?
It's the same reason Knight Rider 2000 did exceptionally well when it premiered. People wanted to see Michael Knight/Hasselhoff and KITT together again and in both cases many were left sorely disappointed. The backdoor pilot had a ton of flaws that to be fair, couldn't be fixed due to the strike but many of the issues are probably at least somewhat to blame for the series not doing as well as it could be. Then again, maybe it was just a case of it coming on during the writers strike and there wasn't anything else to watch.. Though if that were the case people would have easily found something else and if that were the case the audience wouldn't have kept growing every quarter hour.
Anyway, show like this NEEDS those fans of the original to be on board while still attracting new fans as well. Why? Because if you do please the original fans, at least the more rational ones, they give you a instant and solid fan base to build upon. They're the ones who will go out and try to do what NBC isn't doing. The idea is it expand the fans base while NOT alienating fans that are the reason Knight Rider is still a viable property, they've largely failed at doing that. Of all things, it took NBC to be the ones to order the change of direction, something GST apparently didn't like too much.
That doesn't mean you go directly pander to them and make a show so entrenched in the original series that one who hasn't seen the original can't get into it. Does that mean it needs Hasselhoff? No. But IMO it would help the show if he did have some sort of limited role and a guarantee it would boost the show's ratings if properly advertised, as in advertised period, which NBC has pretty much stopped doing for the show.
Though even I, as a first and foremost fan of the original series, wouldn't want to see him every week. The thing is though, that as a continuation they have certain obligations that they haven't met, something that wouldn't have been hard to do with some competent writing instead of pretty much giving a slap in the face to TOS fans with some of the choices that have been made.. Keeping core fan base happy with something more than slight, pointless nods isn't hard to do or much to ask for. Instead of ripping off all the the things he and the writers did, maybe they should have looked to Star Trek to see how to take something and build upon it in making a show that wouldn't have to rely upon the past too much but was still something you could believe was a part of the same universe, only set many years later.
There's going to be an event in Las Vegas next month dedicated to Knight Rider which will bring together fans old and new with people involved with the original series and the new series (including Justin Bruening and Deanna Russo) showing up.
Comment