The producers were required to make the beheadings less violent, thereby adhering to television standards. William Panzer, who was Peter S. Davis's partner and a joint executive producer, explained, "In the movies, you know, we had a lot more license. But this being television in the early 1990s, we couldn't have a lot of body parts flying around. So, we tried to use something that created the idea that somebody got their head cut off, but that it was more like a jolt of light came out of the head, and the lightning flew around them. This, I suppose, was less violent than the movie version." Consequently, the Quickening scene in the pilot episode, "The Gathering," is described in the script as follows: