She’d never say so publicly, but Dana Walden has to be annoyed by how her big promotion played out. Walden has thrived for thirty years at Fox and Disney, most of that tenure paired with another male executive—first Gary Newman, then Peter Rice—who was considered the “business” mind while she handled the creative execution that generated all the value: Modern Family, Homeland, Empire, This Is Us, Ryan Murphy before he damaged his brand at Netflix. All pure profit, and better content, qualitatively, than most of the populist stuff that becomes megahits. Finally, at 58, Walden has ascended to the top TV job, the entire general entertainment empire, the role that reports to the C.E.O.—and instead of a media coronation, the headlines are all about the man she’s replacing. Ooof.

That’s not Walden’s fault, of course. There’s the usual sexism at play here. But she can mostly thank her new boss, Bob Chapek, for abruptly firing Rice nine months after renewing his $20 million-a-year contract, then allowing the news to leak before a Disney press release could spin the move. So instead of a fantastic creative executive scoring a job that she’s clearly qualified to occupy, the story was Chapek sacking a potential rival without notice, likely forcing Disney to cough up about $50 million in severance when the same decision last summer would have cost nothing, and botching the kind of executive transition that his predecessor, Bob Iger, had handled relatively smoothly, with everyone from Rich Ross to Anne Sweeney to Tom Staggs. The situation left Walden—one of the smartest and toughest executives in TV, as well as one of the most diligent curators of her own image—to watch as a bystander at her own party while the story spun out of Disney’s control. It had to drive her nuts.