“The Board Room” wasn’t supposed to “air” until late in the season. In fact it was the 11th of the 12 episode season (not including the “The Long Walk Home” preview). We decided we didn’t want the audience to wait that long to meet Brimstone.
I don’t remember which happened first, the creation of the character Brimstone or us gathered around saying, “what part will Matt Lake play”. Matt was always going to play Brimstone. You’ll see a much more eccentric side of him in season 2.
The opening fire extinguisher scene was altered over and over as it was written. We knew we wanted Quint to help The Warden in some way, but the putting out the fire happened as we got closer to shooting. This was the LAST thing we shot for the series. We were all tired and fried (no pun intended). Since we were shooting at a college and it was getting late in the day, students started to show up to the cafeteria. They had to walk right by where we let loose with that fire extinguisher. I’m surprised no one called the police! I guess Randy looked convincing enough in his “Warden” attire.
John Carr IV, the youngest member of the board, was cast while on set with his father. Because he wasn’t in the original script he had no lines. It happened that Andrew Mitchell had a suit lying that would fit Johnny. We didn’t ask why he had that suit…I don’t even want to guess.
For more information on this episode, read Jim Burn’s own personal blog:
http://emergingfromchaos.blogspot.com/2010/11/clink-board-room.html
And also check out this behind the scenes video Jim shot while on site:
Kevin Regan