Sydney Tamiia Poitier on her Knight Rider Character

[Brian Damage]

NBC's Knight Rider threw viewers for a loop when FBI agent Carrie Ruvai (Sydney Tamiia Poitier) was introduced in a February television movie/pilot: She was shown climbing out of the bed she had just shared with a blond woman.

"There was a girl lying there when she was getting out bed, and I went through it like 10 times and watched it and wondered, 'Are they friends? Is that her roommate? Are they saying she's bisexual or she's gay or what?' I had to go to them and ask," said new Knight Rider executive producer Gary Scott Thompson in an interview. (He wasn't involved in the making of the TV pilot movie.)

Thompson said that, at the time, the studio was angry that a possible bisexual scene was used early on in a family TV movie. But Thompson says now that he won't change the character's possible orientation for the new TV series based on the movie and the 1980s TV show of the same name.

"It was clear to the gay, lesbian and bi community that they knew what it was supposed to be," Thompson said in an interview from the show's Santa Clarita, Calif., set. "Others didn't get it. I knew it. They got a lot of flak about doing that, but in some ways it sets a precedent."

Thompson added: "My inclination is to leave her as she was. Why change it? But the thing about my argument is that, in the case of Anne Heche, she was straight, then bi, then a lesbian, then bi, then straight. If [Poitier's character] is actually bisexual, she would appear different ways, depending on the situation. Of course, in my book, that would make her a much more interesting character, much like Capt. Jack Harkness in Torchwood. If I could use Jack in Torchwood as a role model--I would absolutely use him as a role model--I love his conflictedness about ... everybody. He's real cool."

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