Amid sexual harassment allegations levelled against its star, Michael Weatherly, CBS' drama series Bull season 4 was green-lighted. However, the network will need a new production company, as Amblin Television production founder Steven Spielberg, a donor to the Time's Up movement, decided to exit the picture. Amblin co-heads of production Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank are also not returning for the show's future seasons.
This was after the former co-star on the series, Eliza Dushku, revealed in her article on the Boston Globe the sexual harassment she claimed to have endured while in the show. Dushku made her public revelation just as Bull season 3 commenced.
In her Boston Globe piece, the American-Albanian actress outlined the sexual harassment she claims to have experienced during her stint in the CBS drama series. She also criticized Glenn Gordon Caron, the show's producer-writer, as well as the CBS network. The 38-year-old star was paid her $9.5 million contract, the figure she signed up to, for six seasons on the TV series.
She had written her side of the story when Weatherly's public statement on the incident was published in the New York Times, where he tried to explain what had occurred on the show.
In the aforementioned article, the 50-year-old actor explained that he had been making jokes about the script during an instance of taping an episode and pointed out that Dushku expressed her discomfort at the language he used, for which he said he had "immediately" made apologies.
Weatherly said he was "mortified" at having "offended her" and that after he had reflected on his actions, he made the realization that what he had said was neither "funny" nor "appropriate." He expressed his apologies for his actions.
In the light of the allegations against him, two female co-stars from Weatherly's former TV show NCIS vouched for the actor. Sasha Alexander and Pauley Perrette showed their support for their "friend," saying he was someone they cared about, respected, and trusted.
The Bull series had already been eyed for renewal and the tiff with Dushku has not changed the status of the show on the network, considering that the procedural drama has been consistently performing well in terms of ratings.
Caron may be returning to the show next season, although there has been no official word as yet. Also starring on the Bull are Jaime Lee Kirchner, MacKenzie Meehan, Geneva Carr, Christopher Jackson, and Freddy Rodriguez.
The television series is the creation of Dr. Phil McGraw and Paul Attanasio and take inspiration from the early career of McGraw, who founded one of the most flourishing trial consulting firms in the country.
The story is all about Dr. Jason Bull who is the cocky as well as charming founder of the Trial Analysis Corporation. He and his team make use of intuition, psychology, as well as high tech data analysis in order to better get a grasp of behavior of those involved in a trial---jurors, lawyers, witnesses, and defendants---and use the information to build a winning case for their clients.
