TCA Update: NBC's Silverman on hiring Isaiah

The news that Isaiah Washington has been hired for at least 5 episodes of NBC's Bionic Woman "reimagining" is pretty much all over the place -- and to be honest, we weren't going to make more than passing comment on it, as the guy has pretty much said all he can say about what happened on Grey's (read: absolutely nothing of note or substance) and is now pretty much out of our scope, God bless him.

But AfterEllen.com's Malinda Lo just reported in from the NBC panel at TCA, and NBC co-chair Ben Silverman had a kind of disappointing response to a question regarding the matter:

"He's a wonderful actor and a great performer and he became available and we thought he would be [laughter] ... I started talking to him before he was available ... and when he told me he was available I was like, "You are? I don't understand, what do you mean?" I didn't quite understand ... but the bottom line is he's a wonderful actor and we think inside the Bionic Woman,the character that was created for him is really strong and one that he'll do a really good job at."

Okay. We've already given up hope that we'll ever know the truth about what really went down in that situation anyway, so nothing new here.

But when asked if he was worried about alienating an audience by casting Washington in Bionic Woman, Silverman apparently made a comment suggesting that people will tune into Woman regardless and said, "I think he is really talented." Silverman also noted, "He's put that behind him. Let's give him a chance to do what he does."

People will tune in regardless, yes. But that's not the point. Did this network learn nothing from the fumble with Heroes? But hey -- the show was a hit, so who cares, right? I of course think Washington has every right to make a living, but NBC is a bit cavalier in thinking that what happened at Grey's is a thing of the distant past, either for viewers or for their new star.