Chris Ryan, a former SAS trooper created this series and starred as Blue Troop's Johnny Bell.
Ross Kemp jumped ship from the BBC to ITV thanks to an £800,000 contract, only for the channel to realize that they didn't have anything for him to star in, resulting in Kemp being shoehorned into this series so that the executives who made the deal could justify the cost of hiring the actor. Originally the series was meant to focus on Jamie Dow and how the rookie would grow into becoming a seasoned SAS trooper but after Kemp was cast as Henry 'Henno' Garvie those plans were changed.
Series co-creator and writer Chris Ryan left the series after two seasons due to creative differences. He particularly objected to the presence of female SAS operatives. He later referred to the series as Ultimate Farce. He would later say "I hated it. That's why I pulled away from a lot of normal TV programming in terms of drama. It was too fake...But we don't allow girls to do SAS selection, it's a well-known fact - I was just wasting my time. You'd get on set and the actors wanted to over-act, because that's their perception of an SAS soldier. I found it too hard. So when Strike Back (Strike Back (2010)) came out, I just signed everything over and said, "Don't say I'm your consultant"."
The program went completely off the rails after Series 2 and episodes were broadcast with huge gaps between them, resulting in lower and lower viewing figures.
This series killed Ross Kemp's career as an actor and he had to reinvent himself as an investigative journalist in order to keep working. Although he later went on to host Bridge of Lies (2022) in Spring 2022.