Apparently when TV guy Gary Scott Thompson was hired to take over the reins of NBC’s upcoming Knight Rider revamp TV show, he read a lot of online reviews that mentioned the absence of the new KITT pulling out his turbo boot. Wow, really? I don’t think I even noticed there was no turbo boost in my review of the 2-hour backdoor pilot. But then again, I’m not the biggest fan of the old ’80s show, so I probably didn’t realize it wasn’t in the new version. Anyways, according to Thompson, there will be plenty of turbo boosting going on in the new Knight Rider with him in charge. Plus action. And a new cast.

Thompson tells Sci Fi Wire about his new take on the same old subject:

The main thing fans missed in the telemovie? “No turbo-boost,” Thompson said immediately. “No turbo-boost. That was a million times: No turbo-boost.” He added that, in addition to people griping about using a Ford Mustang instead of the original Pontiac TransAm as K.I.T.T., “they missed the Hoff [original Knight Rider star David Hasselhoff]. But, again, it’s 25 years later, and you have to take the next step.” Even though Hasselhoof had a cameo in the telemovie, he won’t be in the series.

Mainly, though, the new series will introduce an ensemble cast as a support team for K.I.T.T. and his driver, Mike Traceur, played again by Justin Bruening. The cast will include telemovie stars Deanna Russo, Bruce Davison and Sydney Tamiia Poitier and will add Yancey Arias, Paul Campbell and Smith Cho.

And the series will amp up the action from the telemovie, in which the main characters spent a lot of time driving from point A to point B. “It was a lot of time driving, and you can’t do that with an audience today,” Thompson admitted. “I mean, look, our competition is not the other shows on TV. Our competition is Xbox. Simple as that. And when you look at what happens on an Xbox, if we’re not emulating [or] at least getting someone to pay attention that way, then we’re going to lose audiences completely.”

If the name Gary Scott Thompson doesn’t ring a bell, how about Las Vegas? Yup, he was the creator of Las Vegas, the show with all the never-stand-still-for-a-second camera shots and swooping angles and all that nutty stuff. Apparently he’s bringing that to the new Knight Rider. I can’t say as if it wouldn’t be good for the show, since yeah, as Thompson mentioned, there sure was a lot of driving around in the two-hour pilot…

My suggestion? Ditch the new, fancy theme song and stick to the old one. It just sounds way cooler.