NBC's new "Knight Rider" series is ever-so-slightly better than the "Knight Rider" TV movie that aired earlier this year. But that's not saying much. "Knight Rider," premiering tonight at 8 on WPXI, is still laughably bad.

In addition to characters running around and engaging in car chases and talking car KITT (voice of Val Kilmer) transforming, executive producer Gary Scott Thompson ("Las Vegas") manages to contrive a reason for both Mike Traceur (Justin Bruening) and Sarah Graiman (Deanna Russo) to strip down to their undergarments in the first 20 minutes of tonight's premiere.

Mike is some sort of secret agent for Knight Industries. Why the company needs a spy is unclear. It just does. Sarah assists on his spy missions, and an FBI agent (Sydney Tamiia Poitier) back at the base gives the orders.

New characters include tech geek Billy (Paul Campbell, who also played a Billy on "Battlestar Galactica") and Alex Torres (Yancey Arias, "Kingpin"), who's also some sort of boss.

Inside the Knight Industries R&D lab, people scurry about constantly, perhaps in an effort to distract viewers from the show's many deficiencies.

Above all, the show is just sloppy. A plane lands in Washington, D.C., and there are mountains surrounding the runway. The Knight Industries team learns two members may burn to death and they respond with big smiles, saying, "This just got interesting!"

Thompson attempts to graft on a serialized mystery component about Mike's past, which Mike has trouble remembering. But the show gives us no reason to care, in part because Bruening's performance is often tentative and borderline wooden.

There's nothing wrong with escapist fare in prime time, but the best shows in the light-hearted action genre evince at least a little wit, heart and smarts (think: NBC's "Chuck"). "Knight Rider" is nothing more than car porn.