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This is so appalling; I can't even talk about it yet. But Lucas was one of the people responsible for bringing Peter Lenkov down. Kudos to him. He risked his career and being blacklisted by speaking out to HR and again when being okay with being named as a source in this article: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/0...-cbs-showrunner
I would say let's not because none of us are there and have to work this guy or even knew he was like this to be honest. It's easy to tolerate something for "one more year" that none of us was going through. No disrespect to any opinion here.
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Ya know, I've always complained that the reboot didn't have the same "feel good" vibe as the original and how forced things seemed to be... and I wonder if this was the reason. I never had anything against Lucas Till as Mac, but... the vibe of the show was just off.
I actually wonder what RDA would think of all this... if he had been a part of the reboot, would this even have happened? Would he have allowed it? Maybe he saw something that the rest of us didn't pick up on?
Makes one wonder...
"Walk in love. Walk in service. And you will walk in honor." (Good Knight MacGyver) "Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow." - Albert Einstein "What are ferrets made of? Happiness."
"Included in the Vanity Fair piece was an excerpt of a note Till had sent to CBS’ HR department that claimed Lenkov pressured Eaton to return to work following an injury (an allegation Lenkov denies). “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,” Till wrote. “Peter would frantically email and call her insisting on knowing when she would be able to walk at a fast pace again.”."
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QUOTE (Dragondog @ 21 July 2020 - 07:05 PM)
As I said before, seeing how Peter treated some fans on social media raised some red flags, but boy, he was worse than I ever thought
Yes, there have been some red flags over the years; e.g. the revolving doors of writers and none of them ever speaking nice about him, the disappearance of several white male crew members under "fishy" circumstances, the exit of Grace Park and Daniel Dae Kim, George leaving witihout much of a fuss by CBS etc.
But I put a lot of the blame onto CBS for creating a work place that needs to thrive under pressure; knowing that Lenkov had to deliver 60+ episodes every season; probably while still trying to not spend too much money and with a ton of execs and producers meddling with demands.
I cut him too much slack because I felt he just wanted the shows to "survive" and cared about the people. After all, he was responsible for thousands of jobs in a difficult setting (since network TV has been on a downslope for years, with shows getting cancelled left and right). And he's so cordial and generous towards friends and family; investing a lot of time and money into charities and fundraisers.
But guess what, as a boss, he's not so nice and generous. Or only towards people he likes and who agree with everything he says. And we only know about his abhorrent treatment of Lucas and Meredith, so it can't have been much better towards the others. It's heartbreaking and so much worse than I ever expected.
He's apparently a person that doesn't thrive under pressure, but gets volatile and mean. And I'm really pi... off with CBS that they let this go on for so long. The complaints kept piling up with so many crew people coming and going after half a season, yet they didn't do anything as long as Lenkov delivered his 22+ episodes per season per show on time and the ratings were good enough and he budgets within limits. They had the male lead of their newest show complain to HR already in 2017 and they brushed him off as some young actor that just wants more money.
They knew this article was in the works and this is the only reason why they fired him. And this article probably would never have had such an impact if Lucas hadn't been willing to put himself in the line of fire. Speaking out on record never happens on ongoing projects, so I really admire his bravery and I really hope there won't be any indirect retaliation by CBS towards cast and/or crew on either Magnum or MacGyver.
That's always a sign you might be in trouble if your dashboard is on fire... Currently blogging about the MacGyver Reboot on Dashboard On Fire
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Lucas did a podcast with Billy Gallo in September for over an hour; also talking about the toxic environment on the set of MacGyver. He also reveals that the had basically already quit the show before CBS finally decided to get rid of Lenkov.
You can't tell me this man didn't at least want to try it with Tristin, even though he's married......Fortunately Tris is the type to shut it down before it starts