I’ll tackle the “Shark” panel in greater detail later, but I had to share these two moments of James-Woods-ian brilliance with you:

1) When one of the reporters bemoaned the panel - Woods, his co-star Jeri Ryan, and producer / creator Ian Biederman - for not giving them anything that made for good copy, Woods stepped up to bat. “Okay, well, I honestly hate these mother fuckers, but I’m getting paid so, you know, what am I going to do. That fucking Jeri Ryan bitch. She shows up in a fucking Borg suit and says, “Hey, remember me when I was hot?” One more fucking time and I’m done!” At this point, he finally gave in to laughter, saying, “Okay, I think we’re done now.”

2) In the last moments of the panel, Woods tackled the issue of his character’s questionable moral decision in the season finale, when he knowingly sent a man to prison for a crime he didn’t commit because he knew that he that he was guilty of other crimes. As it happens, Woods didn’t really agree with Biederman’s decision to have Sebastian Stark do what he did. “I don’t believe in vigilante justice,” he said…then, after a moment, added, “Except if I were pissed off about something. Then I would believe in it. I mean, you know, I get lousy customer support, I want to get involved in a workplace killing.”

At this point, Woods began to mime speaking into a phone. “‘Where in India are you, mother fucker? Where exactly in Sumatra are you, you fucker?’”

A beat.

“Oh, boy, that wasn’t politically correct,” said Woods. “I wouldn’t want to see that get out.”

Right. That would explain why he then proceeded to make the international hand signal for jacking off…and also why tried to give the publicists at CBS a heart attack with his next words:

“Hey, Isaiah Washington’s back. So that’s good.” With a wicked grin, Woods continued. “Let’s have some controversy. I’m so tempted. I’m so tempted to say it, but I’m not…”

The reporters, of course, were egging him on, even as Biederman was nervously suggesting, “Let’s wait ’til Season 4, can we?”

In the end, Woods demurred. “I’m sure we could do it and kid around and have a good time,” he said, “but, no, somebody would take it the wrong way. All the CBS people back there, they’re shitting themselves right now.”

And with that, “Shark” publicist Barbara Abseck got the biggest laugh of the panel: “Sooooooo…this concludes our session.”

Yeah, but what a way to go…