From the very beginning, "Regan" was seen as having series potential. After the television film scored highly in the ratings, work began on the development of the series proper. Ian Kennedy Martin's idea was for the series to be mainly studio-based, with more dialogue and less action, but producer Ted Childs disagreed, and in consequence Ian Kennedy Martin parted company with the project. Childs produced it on 16mm film, a format that allowed for a much smaller film unit than videotape at that time. This made it possible to shoot almost entirely on location, which helped give the series a startling degree of realism, and to use film editing techniques, which enabled him to give the show a heavy bias toward action sequences.