I have wonderful news! Miss Sydney will be at my *biggest* dream destination, the annual San Diego Comic Con 2008 for another year in a row! Last year she helped bring the hype for Grindhouse and this year it will be all about her new series Knight Rider. I really hope we’ll get some pictures and news coverage from this tomorrow! I hope some fans will go out and support the show at the event.

Thursday July 24 - Hall H (11:45-12:45) Room 6A
Knight Rider: First Look at the New Series and Q&A with Cast and Executive Producers

On the heels of NBC’s hit sequel movie based on the iconic 1980s television classic, Knight Rider has been reinvented as a supercharged action series showcasing the new KITT (Knight Industries Three Thousand). Be the first to see exclusive footage from the new series. Moderated by Television Week deputy editor/columnist Josef Adalian, who participates in a Q&A session with executive producer/showrunner Gary Scott Thompson (The Fast and The Furious, Las Vegas); executive producer David Bartis (Heist, The OC); and the cast: Justin Bruening (Cold Case), Deanna Russo (NCIS), Sydney Tamiia Poitier (Veronica Mars), Paul Campbell (Battlestar Galactica), Yancey Arias (Kingpin), Bruce Davison (X-Men) and Smith Cho (Blades of Glory).

Also a little while ago Sydney attended the Television Critics Association summer press tour in Los Angeles for the show. She also attended the NBC All-Star Party in LA as well. I am currently on the look out for pictures of these events.

And finally here is an interesting article talking about the fate of Sydney’s character Carrie Rivai’s sexuality. While at the press tour, reporters were interested to know if her character would still be lesbian, as was strongly implied in the two-hour television movie that aired in February. “We haven’t explored her sexuality at this point,” executive producer Gary Scott Thompson said at first. If she remains bisexual, Carrie Rivai will be one of only two lesbian/bisexual women of color on all of prime-time scripted television this fall. The other character is Dr. Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez) on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy.

Currently they are shooting the third episode of the series, and Rivai’s personal life has not yet been addressed. “It isn’t an issue because it hasn’t been related to any of the story lines that we’re doing,” said executive producer Dave Bartis, who spoke to AfterEllen.com after the press conference. Bartis also worked on the TV movie.

…”I think eventually as the show unfolds you’ll start to see some of her personal life,” Poitier said to AfterEllen.com in an interview. In the early episodes of the series, which have not yet been made available for screening, producers say the emphasis has been on creating a team of characters that go on missions using KITT, the artificially intelligent car, and not on any of the characters’ personal lives.

“Hopefully it’s something that they will keep,” Poitier said of Rivai’s sexual orientation, but “I don’t know what their plans or their intentions are.”

…On the other hand, Poitier, who played Rivai in the two-hour TV movie and reprises the role in the prime-time series, did not seem confused about Rivai’s sexual orientation. “I like the fact that she had that in the movie,” she told reporters. “I thought it was interesting. That’s something that we don’t see that often on television.”

…When asked how she felt about Rivai’s sexual orientation in the movie, Poitier said: “For somebody that grew up in my generation, it’s sort of like a non-issue. I kind of read it and went, ‘Oh, cool,’ whatever, and done, onto the next scene and how to prepare for that.”