This was the final episode involving Michael O'Hare as a series regular. O'Hare's increasingly debilitating case of schizophrenia made it nearly impossible for him to continue working with such a demanding production schedule. The only other person at the time who was fully aware of the diagnosis was series show-runner J. Michael Straczynski, who utilized a so-called "trap door" plot-line to have O'Hare's original story-lines transferred to Bruce Boxleitner, who took over at the beginning of Season 2. At O'Hare's own request, no one else in the cast and crew was aware of the diagnosis, and his difficulty in controlling it led to some strained relations at the time with several members of the cast and crew.
President Clark's swearing-in ceremony was deliberately staged to mirror that of Lyndon B. Johnson's ceremony after John F. Kennedy's assassination.
As JMS explains in his DVD commentary, the scene of the vice-president being sworn in after the assassination of the president "is a variation on Lyndon B. Johnson's swearing-in aboard Air Force One, down to the pink dress on what would have been JFK's widow ... and the day we shot that scene was the anniversary of the day Johnson took over as president. .. And it was a very quiet set that day, *very* quiet."
The scene of Garibaldi wounded and crawling towards the elevator was inspired by executive producer J. Michael Straczynski's experience of being mugged.
Morden's supposedly strings-free offer was patterned after similar offers of help given by the Mafia.