Of course, we had cameras in the Strykers and helmet cameras and gun-cameras hooked up to both the commander's sight in the Gun Strykers and to the gunner's sight. And both the regular cameraman (for as long as he lasted) and the SAS guy were running around all the time.
We also had the helmet mikes. Those and the gun cameras all could be fed to the commo trailers and recorded. Even if they weren't switched there. So we just continuously recorded everything.
Which was why so much of it was sucky. Reviewers used the term "edgy." I would have preferred better production values, but it wasn't an option.
Oh, and then there was the intro. The "new" intro that was introduced in episode three, "Stones." (The one described above.) I didn't like it. I didn't like the title of the show. I wanted to just call it "Truths" and I liked the simple intro. Graham talked me into it.
Centurions were the guardians of Rome. At the height of the Roman Republic there were over five thousand qualified Roman Centurions in the Legions. To be a Centurion required that, in a mostly illiterate society, one be able to read and write clearly, to be able to convey and create orders, to be capable of not only performing every skill of a Roman soldier but teach every skill of a Roman soldier. Becoming a Centurion required intense physical ability, courage beyond the norm, years of sacrifice and a total devotion to the philosophy which was Rome.
When Rome fell to barbarian invaders, there were fewer than five hundred qualified Centurions. Not because Rome had fewer people but because it had fewer willing to make the sacrifices. And the last Centurions left their shields in the heather and took a barbarian bride . . .
We are . . . The Last Centurions.
And this Rome SHALL NOT FALL!
Shot of a Stryker crashing through a house, (trying to avoid Javelin fire, by the way) intro of various characters. (Yeah, that's me on the radio with the mortar round exploding in the background. What we left out of the context was the camerman hitting the ground right afterwards. Funny as hell. It wasn't as close as it looked, or I'd have already been down, trust me.) Samad and Fillup and Bouncer (the first sergeant) and whoever was featured in that week's episode.
I didn't like it. I wanted to keep the original intro. Graham talked me around.
I still don't like it. I skip it when I watch the DVDs.
"Lancers," "Stones," "Division" about the battle for Mosul, "Hurrians" about the Kurds, "Loot" about scrounging vs. looting and how we ended up saving centuries' worth of cultural treasures in Turkey and finally, I thought, the three-parter "Caliphate" about taking down Istanbul.
My favorite, hands down, is "CAM(P)ing." Now, at the time I thought I was going to burst a blood vessel and wanted to kill every damned Nepo in the camp. As I watched one of our precious HERCULES burn because that fucking CAMP(P) was being used by the Nepos to cook food . . . And to see Samad walking up with it in his hands right after we'd set off the charges. Oh, GOD was I angry.
But I got over it. It was laugh or cry. And it was a very funny episode. The show needed humor and it was usually something between us and the Nepos that provided it.
"Battery" was probably the most poignant. I'm not sure what it was about the death of a minor shopkeeper in a minor town that was so fucked up. But when the batteries turned out to be dead . . . It was just so stupid and so random and so futile. And, yes, after I saw the episode I released some of our precious store of batteries to Goomber for his fucking iPod. Come on, I've got a heart.
Then came "Elephant."
Okay, "Elephant" was a) the only show we did that was pure "activist journalism" and b) the only one that was driven entirely by me. But go back to my point about media and government. The media exists in a democracy so that people can make informed choices about their representatives.
We were going into the first winter of an ice age and everyone was still talking about global warming!
Picture of a flower with baked mud behind it.
"Despite record cold and snow across the northern climes, global warming continues to be a looming disaster . . ."
By then we had permission to let the Skynet guys do interviews using our commo. And we managed to scrounge up one of the climatologists who had been screaming about the situation, and getting ignored, for months.
Remember, I'd gotten the first word back in January. It was November and people were still talking about "global warming." It was insane. We were trekking through road-wheel deep snow in mountains where it usually started to snow in ernest in late December and people were still beating the "global warming" drum.
And we beat them to death with their own drumstick.
The Brit climatologist was almost pathetically glad someone would listen. And he gave us a list of other experts who were trying to get the word out.
We were the first people to break the news that we were entering an ice age and get world-wide notice. We turned the tide. After that episode, even journalists started asking the right questions.
(By the way, I was the "producer" of most of the interviews. What does a producer do? He or she tells the ventriloquist's dummy what questions to ask. I knew what questions to ask. Graham, who before the episode had no clue, just asked them.)
I'm probably most proud of anything that I've ever done in my life with that episode. Well, that and my kids.
Were there "issues"? Oh my fucking GOD.
The Bitch was not pleased. She wanted us off the TV. And she hated Murdoch and all his networks. But, on the surface, it was all Skynet. Us? We're just trying to survive, what do you want us to do, censor them?
And from the first episode it was taking the networks by storm. Murdoch, who knew good entertainment when he saw it, had "Lancers" playing on four different time slots on Skynet and two on Fox News. By the time the Bitch reacted to it, we had another episode canned and a third in production. She screamed that she wanted it stopped. The Brass got passive aggressive.
We aired "Stones" and we were suddenly on Fox Network and one of the minor ones. (UPN?) After "Division" episode one, ABC bought the rebroadcast rights and did all three shows as a "miniseries" as a lead in. Then came "Division" episode two and all the guys people had grown to know just suddenly gone . . .
"Division" was the one that had everyone talking. There was no stopping us after that. She couldn't shut us down because she'd done too many obvious power-grabs and even her closest supporters were glued to the TV every Sunday night at eight.
And Thursday at seven. And various late-night spots and . . .
Hey, there wasn't much entertainment in those days. We were it.
Oh, people ask me, a lot, about "Centurion."
I did not produce the last show of the series. I didn't even know it was in production. I didn't know much about it until about a week beforehand, when I was kind of busy figuring out how to break the Caliphate. So when I was informed that Graham and Fillup were working on the last show, they had it, it's all good, I just let them do it. I trusted Fillup not to screw it up. Hell, by then I trusted Graham. You have good subordinates and you let them do their job. Like I said, I'm lazy.
Fuckers.
And that scene that everybody talks about where we come under fire and I stop telling a story for a second, snap out a string of orders then go back to telling the story?