I always wondered how some people could sit back and just make bad movies and bad television series all the time.

Do they do it on purpose? Do they just think there is an audience for everything, including things that most people would look for the nearest vomit bag while viewing? Or do they really think that what they're producing is good?

Gary Scott Thompson may have answered that long-asked question when he talked a little recently about what was wrong and what was right about "Knight Rider," his show on NBC that no one has really noticed. According to him, NBC's decision to retool the show yet again from his terrorist-of-the-week storyline, and removing three major characters in the process, was the unnecessary interference from the network that hurt great genre shows like "Star Trek" and "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century."

I'm hardly the biggest fan of network interference, and I haven't been a fan of the garbage NBC has been churning out this season. But in this particular case, I have to side with NBC ... "Knight Rider" is something better stuck to the bottom of my shoe. And while I don't think even a retooling can save this crapfest from oblivion at this point, anything has to be better than what we've been forced to watch week in and week out.

I can be a stickler when it comes to television, so I don't always go by my own instincts on what's good and what isn't. I'm not a big fan of "Smallville," for instance, but there are a lot of people I know and respect who love that show inside and out, and because of that, I would never denigrate the quality of it just because I don't like it.

But for "Knight Rider," I have yet to hear anyone really disagree with my take on the show. And the ratings are proving it as well. It's not like the network knocked it around the schedule without notice or something like that. In fact, it's held the same timeslot from the very beginning ... it's not that audiences can't find it. It's more like they don't want to find it.

And sorry, but that to me shows that maybe the "Knight Rider" idea wasn't a good one from the start, and the course that Thompson took it didn't help it any. In fact, it could've hurt it.

I know that Thompson is a very talented guy who wanted to bring some of his expertise into a high-profile television show. But it's just not working, and sometimes we need to step back from our creations to see it's not working.

Please don't resist these changes from NBC, Mr. Thompson, because it's probably the only chance you have left to think about saving this show.

MIchael Hinman is the founder and site coordinator of Airlock Alpha, writing out of Tampa, Fla. He can be reached at mhinman@airlockalpha.com.