PASADENA, Calif. – There will be plenty of 9/11-related fare in the coming months, given it’s the fifth anniversary of the attacks, but ABC’s miniseries promises to be big, bold and dignified.
“The Path to 9/11,” a six-hour miniseries dramatization of events uncovered and included in “The 9/11 Commission Report,” will air Sept. 10 and 11.
The story begins with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and ends on the day of the 9/11 attack.
Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean, chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Acts Upon the United States, said he never expected the commission report to become a best seller – and that he expected the ABC drama to reach an even larger audience, by far.
“My hope is that if people see this and understand the (terrorist) plot, and understand the recommendations that need to be implemented that we learned from the plot, it will be a better and safer country,” Kean said.
Executive producer Marc Platt said he, screenwriter Cyrus Nowrasteh and the rest of the production team did everything in their power to ensure authenticity, and when it came to matters of taste – especially dramatizing the climactic events of 9/11 themselves – to exercise restraint. The miniseries, for example, doesn’t re-create scenes of people jumping or falling from the towers.
“Our approach to the entire process,” Platt said, “was one of a quiet dignity. We try to be dignified with everything because we all … know what the end result was. You don’t need images, or too many images, to tell you.”
There’s also no footage from ABC’s coverage that day (though there is actual video from other sources), because ABC News policy forbids such use.
ABC commissioned this project, convinced of its importance and that the lengthy miniseries format was the perfect genre for this complex subject. Kean, for his part, was happy to serve as a consultant because he hopes the potentially large viewership may help spur a heightened wave of interest in the implementation of new post-9/11 legislation.
“If you understand better what happened, I think you can work more effectively to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he said.
“Five years after 9/11,” he added, “there is still not a unified checklist by those people who are checking good guys and bad guys, whether or not they’re getting on airplanes. … That’s appalling after 9/11.”
Kean has already thought about a worst-case scenario for a followup attack – a terrorist with a nuclear device.
“I mean, that’s the greatest nightmare that I have, and there are a hundred sites in the world right now that have enriched uranium,” Kean said.
“If you can get enriched uranium out of one of those sites, you can probably read on the Internet how to build a device. And we know our borders are not as secure as we’d like them to be, so that’s my nightmare.”
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AP-NY-07-21-06 0926EDT
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