Dave Andron has chipped in with his thoughts about last night’s episode over at NBC’s Knight Writers Blog! Andron took over the writing duties from Rob Wright, who scripted the first part of the story that left the characters “in as dire a situation as he could conjure: the warehouse blown up and Carrie down; Mike and Kitt forced to act as the couriers of a nuclear bomb; and a madman vanished with one African Ambassador. Sounds great, right? It was. Except that then it became my job to figure out how to fix everything.”
The task was complicated on a number of levels, since Andron — who scripted last year’s 2-hour pilot movie — also had to create a “graceful and meaningful exit” for two main characters that he created and helped cast in the show.
The story also provided the team with some other challenges: “The opening sequence with ‘Speeded Kitt’ our stunt unit shot over two days on a freeway we shut down in Long Beach,” he continues. “I think it’s some of the best practical stunt work we’ve seen on this show yet. We didn’t actually land a plane on a highway (land a what on a what?! you’ll see) but we didn’t have to, because our VFX team came up huge in a timeframe that is basically asking the impossible. All of our actors turned in stellar performances (for further examples see Smith hold her own with Richard Roundtree; John Briddell as the stern yet caring ‘Dr. Yost’ [a tip-of-the-hat to the movie Speed, which was written by Graham Yost – KRA]; and Rick Hoffman being, well, Rick Hoffman) but especially the ones we were saying goodbye to, which made their departures all that much more difficult.
“Isn’t there some old saying, about how the things in life that are the most difficult end up being the most rewarding? I’d say that sums up this episode for me. Made me proud to be part of this show, to see what it’s capable of. And I think you’ll understand what I mean when you watch it,” he says.