Lena Waithe and CBS’ chief creative officer David Nevins have been conducting a “great social experiment” over the past couple months, Waithe tells Variety. The findings of her preliminary research on “Twenties” — the semi-autobiographical sitcom she has been shopping for over a decade that began airing its eight-episode season on BET in March — were disappointing to say the least. Waithe anticipated the kind of buzz generated by another Lena (Dunham) after the debut of HBO’s “Girls.” She was hoping for critical acclaim and imagined herself emerging as an underdog media darling — the Phoebe Waller-Bridge of 2020. “I needed the trades to rise up like they did for ‘Fleabag,’ ” says Waithe. “Y’all stepped up and said: ‘Let’s not allow this show to be ignored.’”