Originally aired as a two-part miniseries, but has also been edited into 4 different parts intended for airing as hour long episodes with commercials.
In the source novel by Michael Crichton, the main scientists were mainly white (presumably) heterosexual men, but Robert Schenkkan, who wrote the teleplay for this remake made the decision to change the characters' ethnicities, sexualities, and genders because, he said in a May 2008 interview with Brent Hartinger on afterelton.com, "If you're going to update the story, which is our mandate, you have an obligation to reflect the world as it is." Schenkkan further said that he decided to include the brief reference to Keene (Ricky Schroder) being gay because of a principle invented by Crichton in the original novel, the "Odd Man Hypothesis," which states that in a time of crisis, an unmarried, unattached person [Crichton specified a man] with no family to distract him would have the best chance of making rational, unbiased, unemotional decisions.
Michael Crichton, author of the original novel, is credited as J. Michael Crichton.