The problems began on day two.

Not long before the 2010 reboot of Hawaii Five-0 became a hit for CBS, its showrunner, Peter Lenkov, recruited Sarah Goldfinger to join the staff. The offer, according to Goldfinger, was to be a coexecutive producer and second-in-command of the writing staff on the series about cops solving crimes in the sun and surf. Wowed by the show’s glossy pilot and intrigued by Lenkov’s sales pitch, Goldfinger, who had spent six years writing for the network’s juggernaut CSI, signed on.

On the second day in the writers room, Goldfinger says she noticed Lenkov’s mood darken, possibly in response to a query from her about a particular character’s moral makeup. She sensed that he considered the question an attack.

Goldfinger remembers him asking to speak to her in her office, where he put his feet on her desk, and told her that if she didn’t like her job or the stories that the team would be telling, she could leave. “What I had said was truly not a big deal,” Goldfinger told Vanity Fair. “But I understood in that moment that he was threatening my job.”

And she claims that was just his opening salvo. Goldfinger said that before long, Lenkov—who would ultimately run the CBS reboots of Hawaii Five-0, Magnum P.I., and MacGyver—was screaming at her regularly on the phone during her 50-minute commute home. According to Goldfinger, when she arrived at her house, she’d sit in her driveway as he continued his tirade, at least until she could find a way to get him off the phone. Goldfinger has since been a showrunner herself, and she knows it’s a demanding job. But, she added, Lenkov’s calls were not “creative freak-outs or just displays of normal, occasional stress. This was inappropriate hostility and unacceptable workplace behavior. I’m pretty tough. I had been on some muscular shows. But this was abuse.”

As soon as her 13-episode contract was up, Goldfinger left. But another Lenkov employee, in an interview done shortly before the showrunner was fired this month, told V.F. that she had experienced a similar situation on MacGyver, in Atlanta. “Sometimes I have to hold the phone away from my ear because it’s so loud,” she said. “It’s just volatile rage, screaming, almost incoherent at times. There’s no way to de-escalate it.” Later in the interview, she added, “I’ve never been on a show with such extreme turnover. We can’t get people to stay. It’s a toxic environment, and it starts from the head down.”

Lucas Till, the star of MacGyver, agreed with that assessment. Just before Lenkov’s departure from CBS, Till told V.F. that, while there were periods of time in which he and the showrunner had a cordial relationship, he endured numerous instances of verbal abuse, bullying, and body-shaming that took a serious toll on him. Till said that while the showrunner rarely visited the set, he was ultimately responsible for its tone, and that he created a hostile work environment. “I’ve never worked this hard in my life, and I am fine with hard work,” said Till. “But the way Peter treats people is just unacceptable. I was suicidal that first year on the show, because of the way he made me feel. But the way he’s treated the people around me—that’s just my breaking point.”

One of Lenkov’s lawyers, Dale Kinsella, told Vanity Fair that Till’s allegations regarding the abuse and body-shaming are “100 percent false and untrue,” adding that Lenkov “has championed him from the very beginning and has been nothing but supportive of him.” As for Goldfinger’s account of her treatment, Kinsella told Vanity Fair that Lenkov denies threatening Goldfinger’s job or engaging in any verbal tirades at any time. Kinsella noted that while Lenkov was a fan of Goldfinger’s work, the job situation “ultimately did not work out.”

In recent weeks, I have spoken to 30 sources who worked with Lenkov in some capacity, at numerous levels of experience across all three shows. The portrait most people painted was extraordinarily troubling—not just because of what Lenkov allegedly put people through, but because they felt that CBS must have known about it for years.

If you write about issues of workplace abuse, exploitation, and inappropriate behavior in Hollywood, you’ll inevitably discover an unfortunate tendency to overlook—or even quietly enable—offenses that don’t fall under the categories of sexual harrassment and sexual assault. Those abuses are, of course, horrific (and still all too common, despite the bravery of those bringing these crimes to light). But the ways in which people entering—and leading—Hollywood culture are trained, implicitly or explicitly, to let almost everything else slide is concerning to say the least. One source who worked for Lenkov said, “His mentality seems to be, ‘People just can’t handle things anymore.’ It’s a mentality that’s unfortunately still pretty common in the industry: ‘This isn’t physical abuse. I’m not hitting you. I’m not sexually assaulting you. You just can’t take how this industry works. You’re just weak.’”

A source who started working on a Lenkov show in 2019, and has since left, said he was shocked to see how bad morale was: “Everyone lives in fear. It’s a miserable environment.” A second former Lenkov colleague said, “I was vomiting almost every day from the emotional toll and anxiety…. I never felt safe at that job, I never felt calm there.” Justin Rettke, who worked at various levels on Hawaii Five-0 over four seasons, said the effects of working with Lenkov lingered after he exited the job: “It took me close to a year to stop having nightmares. Being around Peter was like trying to disarm a bomb without a manual. You never knew what wire to cut. You never know when he was going to blow up.”

Till told V.F. that he went to top CBS execs with his concerns about Lenkov and the atmosphere on the show, both in 2017 and again this year. “I think they just took it as some crazy actor trying to get more money,” he said. “Essentially, they didn’t take it seriously.” A source with knowledge of the situation contends that, to the contrary, Till’s recent comments sparked an H.R. inquiry into Lenkov, which led to his dismissal. In May of this year, as that investigation got underway, Till sent a five-page letter to Ellen Goldsmith, the head of human resources at CBS Television Studios, alleging, among other things, that Lenkov had behaved in an unprofessional manner not just toward him but toward MacGyver cast member Meredith Eaton.

On July 7, CBS fired Peter Lenkov as the showrunner on MacGyver and Magnum P.I. (Hawaii Five-0 had already concluded its run in April.) His overall deal, which reportedly had one more year left on it, was canceled. “Our Studio is committed to ensuring safe and respectful production environments,” CBS said in a statement. “Over the past year, we have assigned human resource production partners to every show, expanded staff training, and increased reporting options. We will continue to evolve our practices with continued focus on building trust with all who work on our sets. Every complaint is taken seriously, every claim is investigated, and when evidence is clear that policies were violated and values not upheld, we take decisive action.”

Through his lawyer, Lenkov has denied allegations of abuse and mistreatment brought to his attention by Vanity Fair, but has expressed contrition in a statement: “Now is the time to listen and I am listening. It’s difficult to hear that the working environment I ran was not the working environment my colleagues deserved, and for that, I am deeply sorry. I accept responsibility for what I am hearing and am committed to doing the work that is required to do better and be better.”

Another thing you notice if you write about inappropriate behavior in Hollywood is that virtually nothing happens in isolation and that most of the unacceptable conduct is enabled by toxic traditions. Lenkov is not an unfamiliar type in the TV industry. Many of the people I spoke to described his tenure at CBS as a sort of perfect storm: a man with what they believed was a volatile personality was given a notoriously difficult, pressure-filled job, and left to manage the productions largely as he saw fit. What could go wrong?

One of Lenkov’s former colleagues is worth quoting at length on the industry’s dysfunction: “The learning curve when you jump from writer to showrunner isn’t just steep, it’s exponential. It’s crazy that our industry standard is to take a creative person with no management training, and suddenly put them in charge of a small corporation with a yearly budget of $80 million, directly managing two dozen other creative people, a hundred other physical production staff, with unmissable weekly delivery deadlines—and they don’t get much more than ‘good luck’!

“There’s no way to know if someone’s going to be a good showrunner until they’re a showrunner. And then, if the show’s a hit, there’s no incentive to change the way the showrunner does their job unless they jump the bar to behavior that will cost the company money or bad publicity.

“Running a show is like cocaine. It doesn’t change you, it just reveals who you really are. So if you’re in any way insecure, selfish, obsessive, or just generally a jerk, you’re not going to become a better person in that job. In fact, you’re going to be financially rewarded beyond your wildest dreams for having every one of your personal biases confirmed—for being the purest form of you, for better or worse.”

A Fiefdom at CBS

Peter Lenkov is a native of Montreal and had some film and TV credits to his name before landing at the action dramas La Femme Nikita and 24; in 2010, he got his gig at Hawaii Five-0, which took his career to another level. For four years starting in 2016, Lenkov had three shows on the air simultaneously. And they weren’t just any shows. They were hour-long broadcast dramas airing between 20 and 25 episodes per season, which are increasingly rare in the streaming-driven, short-run TV universe. According to two knowledgeable sources, the total budget for all three shows was at least $230 million per year. Controlling nearly a quarter of a billion dollars—not to mention hundreds of careers—gave Lenkov enormous power.

The shows that Lenkov made are rarely the subject of cocktail-party chatter or critical adoration. Yet they’re the kind of meat-and-potatoes procedurals that have made CBS an enormous amount of money over the past decade or two. Not long after Hawaii Five-0 premiered, former CBS CEO Leslie Moonves called it a “billion-dollar franchise.” The reboots of Magnum P.I. and MacGyver are less well known, but they’re the kind of TV comfort-food shows that do well among my neighbors here in what some coastal folks call “flyover country.”

Despite the allegations, Lenkov has allies and friends, both inside and outside his shows. His lawyer pointed out that there were several upper-level writer-producers who stayed with his productions for a number of years. And even after Lenkov was fired, and it was an uncomfortable time to out oneself as an ally, some people the showrunner had worked with spoke to me about him admiringly, while others posted words of support on social media.

“I was very surprised when I heard what happened, because I never felt that he created a toxic environment,” Linda Sutton, a set decorator for Hawaii Five-0 for four seasons, told me. “He was the boss, and we were all working together as a team to create a look that he envisioned in his mind. And it was always very cordial. I found it to be a pleasure to work with him.”

“I enjoyed Peter’s company. I found him to be a great leader and fair,” said Michael Neumann, who has worked on Lenkov shows for a decade, most recently as the unit production manager on Magnum P.I. “In many cases, he was a man whose workload dictated that he was perhaps curt with employees that weren’t sharing his vision, [but] I have a lot of respect for him.”

In 2018, CBS fired CEO Les Moonves after articles by Ronan Farrow exposed a history of alleged sexual assault, harassment, and intimidation. (Moonves has denied all allegations of wrongdoing.) Sources told me that Moonves left behind a problematic legacy, and the network has taken steps to rectify it. Over the past two years, a number of powerful people in news, late-night, daytime, cable, and scripted TV—most of them white men—have been pushed out of CBS after stories of workplace harassment and inappropriate behavior came to light. Last year, CBS publicized new reporting procedures to “ensure safety and build trust” with its employees.

Still, sources said that the network has considerable work left to do. As one woman who worked for Lenkov put it, “I think that there’s a mindset [at CBS]: ‘Unless you’re doing what Les did, it’s fine. It doesn’t matter.’” Another source—a former CBS showrunner—claimed, “Everyone with any real power at the studio or network knows about Peter’s reputation, and they’re all complicit in the abuse he’s gotten away with for a decade.”

This year’s H.R. investigation was not the first, but rather the third inquiry into the showrunner’s conduct. The first involved allegations of unprofessional conduct toward Peter Tassler, who worked in postproduction on two of Lenkov’s shows. The second concerned producing director Bryan Spicer’s allegations that Lenkov had retaliated against him for not including him in a business venture. Lenkov’s lawyer Kinsella characterized the claims as insignificant and said both investigations “went nowhere.” A source at CBS said of those first two inquiries, “We took concrete and proactive corrective action that we believed was appropriate based upon the findings of those investigations, which were the result of interviews with multiple individuals and review of other information.” In any case, two of the sources I spoke with for this story joked darkly that H.R. files on Lenkov and his shows must be stored in an enormous warehouse like the one glimpsed at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Why did CBS wait so long to take decisive action? Multiple sources offered the same theory: “He makes the trains run on time.” They said that Lenkov’s shows came in on time and on budget, and often had scripts ready months in advance. Many felt that at a network in the volume business, all this is of paramount importance.

“Part of the reason why abusive people have thrived at CBS is because they’re often making 22, 23, 24 episodes a season, and there’s a focus on getting all of those episodes made in a timely fashion and doing it cheaply,” said a source. “Some showrunners—including Peter—have a hard time achieving that without pushing people too far, without making them put up with things they should not have to put up with.”

Another source said that Lenkov once referenced the pressure he was under, saying, “At the end of the day, I’m the one that takes the flak with every episode that comes out.”

“When I Got Hired, I Got Condolences”

Sources told me that Lenkov belittled a number of the people around him, especially if they were a rung or three below him on the ladder of power. But multiple sources said women got it worse than men. “I spent a year not being listened to—not on pitches, not on anything,” said a woman who worked on one of Lenkov’s shows. “It was really hard, and the air of it being a boys’ club was the hardest thing. The air of misogyny was so thick that everybody else had to go along with it. I don’t even think most guys realized they were being misogynistic too.”

The alleged sexism had both psychological and professional repercussions. Sources allege scripts were taken away from women in what felt like a punitive manner; outlines and scripts by women were reworked by men without the women present, and women tended to get fewer script credits than their male colleagues. Lenkov’s lawyer Kinsella acknowledged that there was one allegation of unequal script credits for women at one show, but denies any bias regarding scripts or in any other professional situation. He added, “Peter is absolutely committed to hiring and promoting a diverse array of people in front of and behind the camera. Many women and people of color were successful and promoted on his shows.”

“The way Peter talks to women is completely different from the way he talks to men,” said a woman who worked with Lenkov. “He allows a man to respond to him—and that man can even be angry in his response.”

On the sets of MacGyver and Hawaii Five-0, there were special areas, where the “boys’ club” would congregate. “If we went over there and asked for an answer on some work issue, we would be told by them in this patronizing way, ‘Don’t get emotional,’” the woman continued. “I’m not emotional, I need an answer.”

Through his lawyer, Lenkov denied that the workplaces he oversaw were sexist or misogynist in any way.

Sources said that targets of Lenkov’s ire also included people of color, who already experience difficulties navigating the TV industry. “When I got hired, I got condolences,” said a woman of color who worked on a Lenkov show. “Everyone said, ‘It will be sexist. It’s really hard there for people of color. They will let you go after one year.’ I thought I’d last longer. I did not.”

Lenkov could be generous. After he got to know a Black woman through a mentoring program, he offered her free office space on the lot, then brought her on board as an entry-level writer on one of his shows. But within a week, the woman told me, she’d been upset by both the showrunner and the environment he created: “I came home in tears. I was thinking, I don’t know how I’ll finish out this contract. I was miserable there. Then he gave me an idea for part of an episode, and when I pitched the episode back to him, the idea he gave me—he ripped it apart. I said, ‘You gave me that idea,’ and he said, ‘No, I didn’t.’ I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone.”

Kinsella told Vanity Fair, that, in Lenkov’s view, “the job of a showrunner is to critique material to make sure that it contains his vision. If this occurred, it occurred in that context. It is possible that after a writer elaborated on a pitch, it didn’t seem to work.”

I mentioned to this source that other Lenkov colleagues described similarly frustrating scenarios to me. “But for me, as a Black woman, it just felt like there were extra layers of isolation, condescension, and scrutiny, which made my time there extremely difficult,” she said. “When my contract was up, he said to me, ‘You can’t just come in here and look cute and be nice. I don’t think you have what it takes to write on this show. You should go write novels or something.’ As if I was using my looks or the way I dressed to get what I wanted. It was very offensive. All in all, the environment created by Peter was cutthroat, toxic, and unsupportive. I love writing. It’s my passion. But I left the television industry after that. I thought, If this is what the TV industry is like, I don’t want any part of it.”

Through his attorney, Lenkov denied making these statements or anything like them.

Two Magnum P.I. sources say that, a couple of years back, Lenkov took a dislike to the CBS comedies The Neighborhood, about a white family moving into a predominantly Black community, and Happy Together, about a Black couple who suddenly find themselves living with a pop star. These sources say episodes of both programs were often viewed in the writers room as staffers gathered to watch Magnum P.I. together. One of the sources, an Afro-Latina writer, said that when Happy Together concluded, Lenkov told her, “Get used to it. That’s the kind of shit you’re going to be writing on.” (“Peter denies making that statement,” Kinsella told Vanity Fair.)

This year, the advocacy group Color of Change published a report on the way TV depicts race and crime. The study, which analyzed 26 scripted crime programs during the 2017–2018 season, found that 75 to 83% of Hawaii Five-0’s writers were white. Only three shows had a worse “racial integrity index score,” because the program had so many characters of color onscreen and so few people of color in the writers room. “There were never very many people of color and our voices were not given any prominence,” said a woman of color who worked on a Lenkov show. “We were tokens.”

According to sources, problems of representation sometimes found their way into the episodes themselves as a result. “In my opinion, when I was on the show, the depiction of Native Hawaiian characters was clunky at best and offensive at worst,” said a woman who worked on Hawaii Five-0. A woman of color added, “During my time at Hawaii Five-0, I saw multiple offensive stereotypes in a number of scripts.”

One of Lenkov’s lawyers responded by writing, “Particularly considering that Hawaii Five-0 is set and filmed in Hawaii and features a diverse cast, all of the writers and producers, Peter included, worked hard to respect and celebrate various cultures and avoid stereotypes. Peter has never heard accusations previously that this show (or any of its scripts) contain inappropriate stereotypes, and we would note that the show has in the past received a CAPE award from the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment.”

Three Frustrated Stars

Perhaps the most high-profile controversy of Lenkov’s time as a CBS showrunner involved the departures of Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park, both of whom left Hawaii Five-0 after the show’s seventh season. In late June and early July 2017, trade publications reported that the actors had requested, but not obtained, pay parity with the leads of the show, Alex O’Loughlin and Scott Caan.

Part of the public outcry that ensued arose from the fact that Park and Kim are both Asian Americans, and the majority of Hawaii residents are people of color. The treatment of the two actors prompted widespread incredulity. Many commentators decried the fact that pay parity for men and women of color was still difficult to achieve in television, even for actors with Park and Kim’s résumés.

“Kim and Park were, arguably, the most prominent actors out of the four when the show launched in 2010,” Vanity Fair’s Laura Bradley noted. “Kim was just coming off of a long-running role on Lost as Jin-Soo Kwon, and Park had already made a name for herself for five years on Battlestar Galactica. Caan, by contrast, was known best for appearing in 19 episodes of Entourage…O’Loughlin’s résumé may have been the thinnest of all.”

In his only public comment on his departure, Kim thanked the show’s fans and producers, while also noting that “the path to equality is rarely easy.”

A source said that Lenkov painted Kim and Park as the problem to the staff of the show: “It was always their fault.” (The attorney, Kinsella, flatly denied that Lenkov did this.)

Shortly after Kim released his statement, according to someone close to the situation, there was an exchange between Lenkov and Daniel Dae Kim that included the following from Lenkov: “As a father I’m just appalled—to allow your children to think there are people you work with perpetuating racism is, again, shameful. Instead of taking the road of ‘great strides,’ you’ve taken the dark path of ‘we’re minorities.’…. I had just wished you had taken the classy way out—but instead you brought ‘equality’ into it.”

Vanity Fair reached out to Kim’s representatives, who confirmed the accuracy of the communication above, but both the rep and Kim declined to comment.

Over on MacGyver, star Lucas Till had a bumpy ride as well. He wrote in his email to CBS’s H.R. department, “There was always something about my appearance that wouldn’t please him like when I was in a hospital gown and our producer…thought it was funny that [Lenkov] said my legs were ‘fucking hideous’ and we can never show them again. Honestly, I found some humor in that comment as well, but you can imagine if that was a more sensitive spot that he had hit, and often did. Just like the time he screamed at [a director] ‘Oh, my fucking God! Tuck his shirt in, he looks like a little fucking boy.’ Just hire a 35 year old then.” Till added in that H.R. note that “I’ve struggled with maintaining ‘man weight’ on the show because of the stress, no time to work out, and an unpredictable schedule for proper nourishment.”

“Peter has a thing against Lucas, you know?” a MacGyver source told me before Lenkov was fired. “He just does. I witnessed Lucas change dramatically throughout this period, and it really hurt me. I hated seeing this happen with him because he’s a great guy, and there’s nothing wrong with him or his body.”

Lenkov’s attorney said that allegations that Lenkov body-shamed or mistreated Till are “100 percent false and untrue.”

“It Was Awful. She Was Crying.”

There are two last stories about Lenkov that stand out in the minds of the people who worked with him. Taken together, they underscore the fact that a wide variety of people allegedly had serious difficulties with him. One story involves a writer on Hawaii Five-0 who was battling cancer, the other an actor on MacGyver, who is a little person.

The actor in question, Meredith Eaton, became a series regular at the start of MacGyver’s second season, and Till and others speak highly of her. “She is not only an outstanding actor, she held everything together on set,” one source told me. Added another, “She was the only person who liked everyone, and everybody liked her.”

Lucas Till wrote about Eaton in his May 2020 email to CBS’s H.R. department: “Meredith suffered an injury on set that was not dealt with properly…. and had to get a hip replacement surgery and in-home care to recover fast enough to return to work the next season…. Peter would frantically email and call her insisting on knowing when she would be able to walk at a fast pace again.”

Till and other sources told me that Eaton informed the production that she’d need certain accommodations in the new season as she continued to recover. But during the filming of the season three premiere, according to people who were present, Eaton had to stand for hours. “It was awful,” one told me. “She was crying. It was extremely hard to watch.”

According to Lenkov’s lawyer, Lenkov, after learning of this, made inquiries about the on-set request that Eaton stand for long periods. The lawyer told Vanity Fair that Lenkov was informed that that was not the case, and denied that Lenkov pressured Eaton regarding when she could walk rapidly again. Through his lawyer, Lenkov denied all allegations of mistreatment of Eaton of any kind, at any time. His lawyer said that Lenkov believed that he and Eaton had had a good working relationship. Eaton, through intermediaries, declined to comment for this story.

As for the Hawaii Five-0 writer with cancer, multiple sources described Lenkov’s treatment of her—and the writer herself told me that Lenkov “ran out of sympathy for me very quickly.”

Initially, the writer didn’t tell her boss that she had been diagnosed with cancer, just that she was sick. But when she had two surgical procedures within weeks of each other on Fridays, she says that Lenkov grumbled—even though she was back to work on Monday. The writer decided to tell him what exactly she was being treated for. “By admitting to Peter that I had cancer, I was really just hoping he would ease up on me a little,” she said. “I was exhausted and in pain.”

The writer was relieved when tentative plans to send her to Hawaii to work on an episode she had written evaporated. But she told me that, a week or so after telling him about her diagnosis, Lenkov said he actually did need her to travel—and very soon. “The thing is, Peter, I’m scheduled to have radiation every day for the next six weeks,” the writer says she told him. According to her, he responded, “Don’t they have radiation centers in Hawaii?”

Lenkov’s attorney said that the writer was never asked to go to Hawaii while she was sick and was not mistreated. He denies the remark about radiation and stressed that this woman’s health was a high priority for Lenkov.

Where Was Human Resources?

CBS, like companies of all kinds right now, claims to be ever more responsive to employees and ever more dedicated to transforming its workplace culture. Still, the network’s H.R. department was not viewed as an ally by the vast majority of the employees I interviewed.

“H.R. is a joke. It never crossed my mind to go to them,” said one former Lenkov employee. “After I left, the hardest part was that he kept getting more shows. I watched that and I could not believe he was being rewarded for bad behavior.”

Some of the people who’ve worked with Lenkov are grateful to him for the effect he’s had on their lives and careers. The former showrunner’s lawyer said that Lenkov was being inundated with expressions of support.

“I have seen him go to bat for people, when they needed someone in their corner, because he believed in them,” John Hartigan, a special effects supervisor on Hawaii Five-0 and Magnum P.I., wrote on Instagram recently. “He has always been fair in his practices around me, never favoring one person over another. It saddens me deeply that a handful of people can take the name of a good man and smear it through the mud.”

“In ten years of working at the closest quarters with Peter and his inner circle, I have never witnessed anything other than professionalism, dedication, and fair practices and opportunities to everyone who came into his universe,” wrote David Naylor, who worked on DVD content for all three of Lenkov’s shows.

When CBS dismissed Lenkov, they promoted two executive producers, Monica Macer and Eric Guggenheim, to run MacGyver and Magnum P.I., respectively. Macer is a woman of color.

The day after I spoke to Michael Neumann—the Magnum P.I. crew member who spoke highly of Lenkov earlier in this piece—he got in touch to tell me that CBS had let him go. Neumann said he was told that it had to do with the merging of crews, which is certainly plausible. But when I asked if he thought he lost his job because of his connection to Lenkov, he replied, “Yes. I do, yes. They are cleaning house. They are getting rid of the old guard.”

Days later, CBS confirmed to Vanity Fair that a MacGyver producer named Jeffrey Downer was also “no longer with the show.”

On July 13, a week after Lenkov’s dismissal, CBS announced it is setting a target for the upcoming TV season: At least 40% of its writing staffs will be Black, Indigenous, and people of color. The network also said that 25% of its script-development budget would go to projects created or cocreated by BIPOC.

Life After Lenkov

In the weeks leading up to Lenkov’s dismissal, most of the sources I spoke to had little reason to believe that the showrunner would be fired. When CBS made its announcement on July 7, some of them found it disorienting. It seemed both sudden and belated.

“The day the news broke, my phone blew up with calls & texts,” one source wrote to me. “The outpouring of love and support from my family, friends, and both current & former coworkers was just incredible. My feelings, though, are all over the place.”

Someone who recently worked on MacGyver put it this way: “My reaction is that I’m glad he’s gone and that CBS did the right thing—but I’m sad that it took this many people this much time and effort to make the removal of Peter Lenkov happen. It should never have taken this long. A lot of former and current MacGyver employees are relieved. And there’s a lot of excitement surrounding Monica Macer being named showrunner.”

Going forward, the question is whether the television industry will truly move beyond what I call the Sun King model of showrunners. Many sources I’ve spoken to over the years believe that as long as a show comes in on time and on budget—or as long as the show garners awards and buzz—showrunners can have a mostly free hand with their power. Sun Kings, I’ve observed, rule by fear and favor. If you fear them and never speak of their abuses, you may be able to carve out a career. If you don’t, job opportunities may dry up.

The Sun King model still exists. It applies to all genders, and extends beyond CBS.

“I’ve never seen a significant push from any studio to enforce basic professional standards,” one TV veteran who worked for Lenkov told Vanity Fair. “Nobody at the studios seems to want to think of one of their productions or one of their writers rooms as a workplace. They think of us as like a field where they’re growing something, and you don’t really care what you have to spray on your field, as long as the crops come in. And if that shit’s toxic and people have to live in it, well, that’s too bad.”

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