CBS produced a television drama titled "The Agency," which focused on the inner-workings of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The show was conceived of by Michael Frost Beckner, who also served as an executive producer on the show along with Shaun Cassidy Productions, Radiant Productions, and Universal Network Television's productions. Two seasons of it were shown, beginning on September27,2001, and ending on May17, 2003. The filming took place in the CIA headquarters themselves, which had never been done before. The show drew criticism for its examination of current events on a global scale and its depiction of the moral conundrums that are inescapable in the field of intelligence gathering and analysis. Beckner's pilot script, which was written in March2001, hypothesized a re-invented CIA that was tasked with a "War on Terror" after Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist organization plotted a deadly strike on the west. Beckner's script was a pilot for a television show. The pilot was scheduled to have its world debut at the CIA Headquarters on September18,2001, and it was supposed to air on CBS on September21,2001; however, the real attacks on 9/11 persuaded the network to delay the pilot and instead air a later episode. This first episode was eventually shown as the third episode of the first season of the show. The terrorist attacks that took place on September11, 2001 caused a shift in the way that Americans viewed entertainment that was topical, and one of the most topical offerings on network television at the time was "The Agency." The creators of the series rapidly responded to this new American perspective on world politics; nonetheless, CBS made the decision to stop the show shortly after the conclusion of the second season's final episode.
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