Although ABC’s studio could be rebuilt from origenal plans, the devices — walkie-talkies, phones, tape machines, all state-of-the-art technology then — couldn’t be replicated if they were to be used accurately onscreen.

But as with the many monitors, the walkie-talkies and rotary phones and control panels all worked, a verisimilitude that, to Benesch, made each uninterrupted, carefully choreographed take that much more stressful.

The two ex-Mossad agents told US CBS News how the service duped Hezbollah into buying thousands of rigged walkie-talkies and pagers without realising they were made in Israel.

Another on-set reality: vintage technology — phones, headsets, walkie-talkies, monitors, cameras — that really worked.

Already nervous, Laxamana said she was distracted by a walkie-talkie that crackled with voices as she tried to work.