At Variety, I recapped the windmills that The Knights of Prosperity have been tilting at:

In order to fulfill their mission to rob Mick Jagger, the underdogs known as "The Knights of Prosperity" have needed to operate in stealth mode.

Unfortunately for them, ABC's sitcom detailing their adventures is succeeding all too well at flying under the radar. The past two weeks have brought a double dose of decidedly unprosperous news for the goofy but likeable show.

"Knights" premiered Jan. 3 to a 9 p.m. Wednesday audience of 7.2 million viewers. The program then had one week to build upon that foundation before facing the show-eating beast known as "American Idol" on Jan. 17.

But in what lead Knight Eugene Gerkin (Donal Logue) would undoubtedly consider another example of the world conspiring against him, President Bush had to go and speak to the U.S. about his Iraq policy Jan. 10, right when the second episode of "Knights" was to air on the East Coast.

Rather than preempt the seg, ABC delayed it in the New York time zone. The show did air in its normal timeslot in Los Angeles, but amid enough confusion that it dropped out of TiVo's schedule as well as listings in newspapers including the Los Angeles Times. Viewership fell 28% to 5.2 million.

Last week, "Knights" finally faced its doomsday in "Idol" and got Simonized, shedding another 1.4 million viewers to drop to 3.8 million. Moreover, random conversations around town revealed that folks who had been won over by the pilot were left confused or annoyed by Week 3 developments that played off a previous episode they weren't even aware of. ...