• The Advocate coverboy for its 1000th issue is Lance Bass. Stories from the year-end wrap-up include the 2007 Sissy Awards (by AfterElton.com contributor Alonso Duralde), an interview with Melissa Etheredge and a meditation on the Republican bathroom sex boom. UPDATE: Since our initial post, the mag has added the "*But he loves you anyway", to the cover, lest we think that we had gotten on Lance's bad side. We're still 5 x5!

• Nothing really new or exciting here, but Matthew Rhys recently did an interview where he talked about Brothers & Sisters and his upcoming movie.

• Cyndi Lauper will headline Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in 2008. I went back in 2001 and while I had hands-down the best time of my whole life, the biggest performer we got was Sheena Easton. Denied!

• John Barrowman says he'll be returning to the stage next year, as performing for a live audience trumps performing with large rubber-headed aliens. And here's a blog account of his ongoing Aladdin rehearsals. (pic above)

• Celeb stylist Robert Bloch asks, "Why Do Celebrities Get So Crazy?" We ask "Why is Robert Bloch writing for ABC News?"

• Isaiah Washington showed up at the Grey's Anatomy writer's strike picket party. Kathering Heigl (there with castmate T.R. Knight) makes it clear that she didn't send him an invite.

After Friday's liveblog of the history-making kiss on As the World Turns (and today's episode was pretty interesting ... more on that later), I thought I'd give a play-by-play of what is sure to be one of the most disastrous television moments of the year, Isaiah Washington on the newly-minted Star Jones talk show.

The real challenge here will be getting through the liveblog without taking any potshots at Star's appearance (or what's left of it, seeing as she apparently left half of her body weight in a hazmat bin at a local plastic surgeon's over the last few months) or the frequent rumors about her husband's sexuality and focusing on the main event.

I'll do my best. Really, I'm only doing this because Washington has yet again said he's going to lay it all on the line, and for some reason the twin-disaster combination of he and Jones might actually lead to something. Which means I'll have to write about it anyway, so may as well get it out of the way.

The conclusion: Nothing new, and the show overall is a complete and utter waste of time and space (luckily, the set is about the size of a Manhattan bathroom, so it's not that big of a deal). The Washington interview was pre-recorded and is clearly an attempt to rehabilitate his public image, not an attempt to get to any truth behind what happened. Court TV should be ashamed of themselves.

You can watch the interview segment over here. For the blow-by-blow, click on through!

The TCA panel for Private Practice, the spin-off from Grey's Anatomy just finished, and while there were hardly any Isaiah Washington questions during the panel, they came fast-and furious during the press Q-and-A afterward. Here is what what Grey's creator Shonda Rhimes had to say about the controversy.

How difficult a decision was it to release Isaiah on a personal level?
Shonda Rhimes:It wasn't. It was a decision that took a long time coming. It felt like it was the right decision for all of us.

So this wasn't a decision that was forced upon you? This was something that you agreed with?
SR: The great thing about Mark Pedowitz [ABC Studios Head]and Stephen McPherson [ABC president] is they never imposed anything on me.

So you agreed with the decision he should not come back?
SR: Of course I did.

You were quoted as saying it was disturbing the thought that one black actor could be replaced with another. Do you have any second thoughts about saying that, particularly in light of the recent recast on Private Practice?
Rhimes: No, I think there's a point there. I think that Preston Burke, the character that audiences have come to know and love for three season[s], it's very different. And at a time which there was some talk of, 'Let's cast this actor or that actor... " sort of naming a bunch of black actors. As if the only thing that was important about the character of Preston Burke was his race. That was disturbing to me. It's a very different situation from the enhanced two-hour [episode of Private Practice], which was our version of a pilot. Pilots get recast all the time. Ours just happened to air. It wasn't a matter of needing to find another black actor. It was a matter of, Audra McDonald is the person we want.

Do you understand that there were people that interpreted this as you turning a homophobic incident into a racial incident?
Rhimes: Do I understand? I do now. Absolutely. But I do think that that moment of discussion about that was disturbing to me -- as disturbing as the entire incident that happened for T.R. and Isaiah.

Continue reading after the jump.

More from today's TCA!

• You'll remember last week that during the NBC panel we reported that NBC co-chairman Ben Silverman lamed out when asked about their decision to hire Isaiah Washington for The Bionic Woman. Via Ask Ausiello comes this tidbit from TVGuide's Stephen Battaglia concerning ABC president Stephen McPherson's comments today about that decision. Said McPherson:
  

"...if (Silverman) was in fact talking to him [Washington] before he was available, that's inducement to breach. So I don't know, he's either clueless or stupid." And in reaction to Silverman's assertion he hadn't known much about the circumstances surrounding Washington's getting axed from Grey's Anatomy, McPherson bitingly asked, "Was he living in a cave?"

• During the panel for ABC's commercial new show, Cavemen, someone asked if there might be a gay caveman at some point. The guys in charge of the show exchanged jokes before saying they haven't ruled it out. Eeeek! Given that earlier in the discussion, actor Sam Huntington made a rather tasteless cross-dressers joke, this is one show I really hope doesn't add a gay character.
• Women's Murder Club doesn't currently have a gay character, but they just might down the road.
  
• It looks like Footballers Wives is well and truly dead at ABC. So no bisexual football players! Boo! Hiss!
  
• Out writer Bryan Fuller and out producers Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks clearly enjoyed the buzz surrounding their Pushing Daisies. No, there isn't anything specifically gay on the show (yet) -- except Broadway stars like Kristin Chenoweth, Ellen Greene, and Swoosie Kurtz, and a sensibility that is more gay than a season of Top Chef, Project Runway, and Queer Eye combined. After the panel, I chatted with both Fuller and Cohen and will have their comments on Friday!
• Executive producer for Cashmere Mafia, Darren Starr, said there aren't any gay male characters on that show so I asked if either Mario Cantone or Willie Garson were confirmed for the Sex and the City movie. Unfortunately, Starr wouldn't say one way or the other. UPDATE: AfterEllen.com Managing Editor Malinda Lo just had an interview with Cashmere creator Kevin Wade who says there is going to be a gay character and gay storylines on the show. I'm looking into so stay tuned for details!

Isn't it funny how inexplicably being cast in a huge show by a rival network instantly sweetens one's grapes?

In this Access Hollywood video interview with Isaiah Washington (which airs tomorrow), he praises T.R. Knight and says that speculating about Machiavellian maneuverings would be "theoretical" (maybe "totally empty trash-talk" would be more accurate, but as it was he who was slinging these accusations, I guess his view is soft).

Quotes:

"Do you think he benefited from this dust up?" Billy asked Isaiah over Knight's nomination.

"T.R. Knight is a good actor. He has been a wonderful actor from day one," Isaiah said. "T.R. Knight, congratulations. He finally got the attention he deserved."

"Whether or not it serves any particular agenda that he's nominated now, to make a point, I can't speak on that. That's theoretical. I don't know, but good for him," the former Dr. Preston Burke noted.

Hopefully this closes the circle on this mess, restoring harmony to the known universe and a fresh lemony scent to the Los Angeles smog.

• GLAAD busts actress Niurka Marcos homophobic comments about her ex-husband Bobby Larios who is playing gay. That's the couple in happier days.
  
• Gay firemen of New York say I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry mirrors their lives. I guess that's a whole lot better than Rescue Me mirroring their lives!
• We mentioned Tammy Faye Messner's guaranteed-to-be-devastating appearance on Larry King on the Queerview today, and this video excerpt confirms that watching this exceptional woman's pain is virtually unbearable. This woman has been through so effing much and has been such a friend to gay visibility in recent years, and our hearts and wishes go out to her.
• We never thought we'd say this, but we kind of agree with James Woods.
• Remember that ban on gay sex at the South Pacific Games? Well, it's been banned. Next: a ban on banning!
• AOL Movies has a quiz testing your "Men in Drag" knowledge. Warning: Big Momma's House references therein.

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.

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.