The first two episodes of BBC One thriller Bodyguard have earned a rapturous reception from viewers, with many singling out the opening sequence of the first episode for particular praise.
In a tense 20-minute set-piece, off-duty police officer David Budd (Richard Madden) stumbled across a terrorist plot and had to thwart a bombing aboard a train.
The reaction to the sequence was hugely positive, but – speaking exclusively to Digital Spy – Bodyguard creator and writer Jed Mercurio revealed that he was pressured to drop the segment entirely.
“I definitely wanted to start off with something that was a dynamic introduction to the series, and a dynamic introduction to the character [of David Budd],” he explained. “Then, once I started to think about the mechanics of the sequence, I thought, really, to do it justice, it would end up being quite a significant period of time.”
He might be the man who’s brought us a string of incredible 20+ minute interrogation scenes on Line of Duty, but Mercurio said he still came up against opposition when pitching the lengthy train sequence.
“The challenge with the writing was justifying the amount of screen time,” he explained. “It was important that people felt that the sequence earned its place, and had enough twists and turns that it didn’t feel like an indulgence.
“Pretty much at every stage of the process, there were significant and powerful people saying, ‘Do something different!’ – some people had doubts about whether it was the right thing to do, dramatically. Whether it was the wrong choice as the way in.”
Mercurio went on to say that there is “a real spectrum of opinion” in the TV industry as to the best way to open a drama series. “There are people who feel very strongly that the audience needs to be eased in to new drama, and anything that challenges them, or throws too much at them, will be rejected.
“And then there are other people at the other end of the spectrum – the people who are right! – that say the audience is much smarter than that, and that what you can do is involve the audience straight away, and carry them on a journey, without having to spend a lot of time reassuring them that they’re not going to have to think, or feel, or do anything that involves them actually engaging with the programme!”
All that being said, the train sequence was originally intended to be even longer – until Mercurio and his team decided, on the final day’s filming, to trim the planned ending. “We actually had more of the sequence, where they do attempt to defuse the device and then there are consequences to that.
“But we decided against doing that, because [those scenes] didn’t involve Richard Madden’s character David Budd. They involved minor characters, who then aren’t actually important to the story going forward. And also, to do that well was quite costly, so it felt like it was an expense that wasn’t justified.”
Bodyguard follows Budd – a war veteran-turned-Specialist Protection Officer – as he’s assigned as bodyguard to Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes), the ambitious and powerful Home Secretary. Responsible for Montague’s safety, Budd finds himself torn between his duty and his beliefs… could he become her biggest threat?
The series continues this Sunday (September 2) at 9pm on BBC One.
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