More on Washington Bionic Woman hire

The other day we reported on how NBC had hired Isaiah Washington for its new Bionic Woman show and how genuinely pleased they seemed with themselves (and oddly so) for hiring the freshly-scandaled actor.

Well, the fabulous Maureen Ryan over at The Chicago Tribune just updated us with some further discussions that took place with the show's creative team at NBC's TCA panels, and they're just about as encouraging as co-chair Ben Silverman's comments from earlier in the week.

Question: Do you think that the casting of Isaiah at this time shows any disrespect to the gay community?

Jason Smilovic: Absolutely not. We embrace the gay community. We are hoping that they are going to watch the show, and we are in no way making any judgments or statements or assignations about what was said or what was done. This is about making a television series. It's about making some great entertainment, and we found a great actor to do that.

Ryan caught up with series writer David Eick at the conference when he was being asked a few more questions about the "faggot" situation:

David Eick: You guys are going to hate me but I don't really know what he said. I'm sorry whenever they're picking a jury for a high-profile murder case, I never know how they get 12 people who didn't hear about who did it. But like that guy who didn't hear about O.J. I knew there was some controversy, honestly I was so busy, I was trying to finish the Bionic Woman pilot, I had another pilot at Fox this year, and Battlestar was going, I didn't know, I don't know what he did.

[Someone tells him what IW said]

DE: That seems kind of rude and unfortunate and I'm sure he didn't mean it. I don't know the man well enough, I had dinner with him once and thought he was delightful. I've seen his work and think he's an intensely talented actor. I'm sure whatever transpired was a mistake and he feels sorry about it, and that's not for me to say.

[Whose idea was it to bring him on board?]

DE: I got an email from Katherine Pope [at NBCU Studio] saying would you guys be interested in Isaiah Washington somewhere in your show, Ben Silverman's been talking about him. And I said, I'd seen him as an actor, and I knew we were talking about a character who was going to be this sort of an intimidating force who was going to challenge Jaime in a different way than the other people in her world. I thought, great, it'd be great to get a guy of that caliber for that role, so we set a dinner with him and began pursuing him.

[It's pointed out that he'll keep getting asked about this. Could that distract from the show?]

DE: No. I still abide by the credo that no publicity is bad publicity. And for everyone who doesn't watch the show because they're sensitive to the controversy, I figure we'll get two who will because they're curious. I just think that's how it evens out in life, and eventually there will be a new scandal and no one will be thinking about this.

So he hadn't even heard about the hugely publicized happenings on the Grey's Anatomy set? And these obviously intelligent people behind a big new show all think that it's really no big deal that they've just hired an actor who was roundly spanked in the press for a good six months? Sounds a bit off, and it seems increasingly as though Washington might have been forced into the the mix by the higher-ups.

Either way, it's a shame -- but at least in this incarnation, the Fembots won't be the only ones who have a hard time saving face.