Father Dougal McGuire Linehan and Mathews to discard the mockumentary format and expand the Father Ted episode to a traditional sitcom, Father Dougal became one of the main characters. When writing Dougal, Linehan and Mathews drew on Stan Laurel, incorporating some of Linehan's own behaviour during moments of confusion. Linehan and Mathews saw O'Hanlon in a modernised Shakespeare play broadcast by RTÉ, and were impressed by the "weird, gormless" face he could pull. Linehan later said, "That was Dougal right there. He was just spot-on and he became our secret weapon. The show took off so quickly because Ardal was so instantly funny."
Father Ted Crilly Dougal says that they will live together on the island forever, and a montage of clips from all previous episodes is shown before the episode ends. The episode originally ended by flashing forward a year to the next conference. Ted sees Father Kevin standing on the ledge again; instead of helping, he joins him on the ledge, preparing to jump himself. The scene was cut and replaced with the montage following Morgan's death and poor reaction from audiences. Mathews later noted that the original ending still left Ted's fate ambiguous, and would have suggested the possibility of future episodes. Linehan