At 'Lost' Session Critics Ask ABC, What Are We, Chopped Liver?

"Do you want us to go to Comic-Con tomorrow instead of the [ABC] sessions?" she pursued.

"Let's go now. Do you want to go? . . . You and me, we'll just go on a little road trip down to Comic-Con," McPherson said, now bathing in sarcasm.

Hundreds of years ago, Comic-Con was a sweet little comic book convention. But it's been totally co-opted by the studios, and now, for four days each year, it's the center of the cultural world.

This year Comic-Con expects about 120,000 blogging geeks, who will rake in whatever the studios shovel out about upcoming movies and TV series.

On the TV side, pilot episodes of "Bionic Woman" and "Chuck" (NBC), "Pushing Daisies" (ABC) and "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" (Fox) will be screened for the geeks who -- you can bank on it -- are going to fill the blogosphere with rave reviews.

Comic-Con is irksome to the TV critics at the press tour.

"I don't think my editor is going to be very happy when she reads on a blog later this afternoon that Steve McPherson promised that the biggest news regarding one of the highest-rated shows on the network would be coming at a fan convention the next day," said one critic.

"Hear, hear!" others chimed in, which is something we didn't think happened except in crunchy-gravel BBC adaptations of novels.

"Not to be a crybaby . . . what's the point of having 150 reporters with access to millions of readers sitting here?" asked another critic, joining the pile-on. "You have the announcements. You can give them out. Instead you are going to hold them to give to people who have to pay to get into a convention."

"Okay, I'll give you the announcement," McPherson said. "I didn't know -- I started talking to him before he was available, I don't know what went on there. But I cast Don Imus on 'Lost.' " That was McPherson doing his impression of Silverman at his July 16 press tour session, telling critics he had started talking to Isaiah Washington about doing something on NBC "before he became available." Silverman also said he was shocked when ABC decided not to renew Washington's contract, as in: "When he told me he was available I was like 'You are?! Wait, I don't understand. What do you mean? You're a huge star on a hit television show!' " Silverman also told critics, "I don't quite understand what had gone on there."

Those of us not sucking on the hookah for the past few months know that what was going on there was that ABC decided not to renew Washington's contract on "Grey's Anatomy." This decision came after Washington used a homophobic slur in re cast member T.R. Knight, then publicly apologized, then used the word again at the Golden Globes to deny having used it in the first place, then apologized again, went to counseling, cut an anti-homophobe public service announcement that ABC aired during a "Grey's" rerun, then started hinting the whole apology/counseling thing might have been just a publicity stunt. Silverman, who shares a celebrity tailor with Washington, hired him for a five-episode guest gig on the new "Bionic Woman."

More on Silverman later. Back to McPherson's train-wreck news conference: