Denise Crosby (Dr. Rebecca Frost) and Jeri Ryan (Felicia Kane) are both best known for their regular roles in a "Star Trek" series. Crosby played Lt. Tasha Yar in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) from 1987 to 1988 and Ryan played Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Voyager (1995) from 1997 to 2001.
The Nightshade, in trying to regain the confidence of Fosnight (his former source), speaks of "...the last time I brought you down; you were short timing for Gorilla Grodd in Helltown." Gorilla Grodd is a member of the Silver Age Flash's "Rogues Gallery" in the DC Comics series on which the series is based. Nightshade's Grodd was presumably a human gangster. In the comics he is a literal gorilla from a hidden city of civilized gorillas - something which this series, with its severely stretched budget, was not equipped to depict.
The character Nightshade is commonly accepted as the first serious black costumed crime fighter in TV history, coming three seasons before M.A.N.T.I.S.
Researching police files on The Nightshade, Lt. Garfield reads a confidential statement from "Police Captain Julius Schwartz." Julius Schwartz was one of the creators of the DC Comics character of the Silver Age Flash (on whom this series is based).
The newspaper heiress Felicia Kane shares her surname with Citizen Kane (1941)'s Charles Foster Kane. Her high profile kidnapping is based on that of Patricia Hearst, whose grandfather William Randolph Hearst was the inspiration for Kane.