Wil Wheaton and Patrick Stewart came up with the gag where Wesley Crusher encounters a non-automatic door for the first time. They approach the door, which Wesley stares at. Picard looks at Wesley, as if thinking "Aw kids!" and opens it for him.
Picard's anecdote about being stabbed through the chest later became the basis for Tapestry (1993). Many details established here, including the fact that he reacted to the injury by laughing out loud, were preserved in the later depiction.
The second of Lycia Naff's two appearances as Ensign Gomez in the series. She later voices the character in First First Contact (2021).
The original plan was for the Captain's yacht to be used to transport Capt. Picard to Starbase 515 for immediate heart surgery, but the producers decided to nix the idea due to budget constraints, and to go with a traditional shuttlecraft instead. Ironically, the Captain's yacht for the Enterprise-D is never used or shown throughout the entire ST:TNG series run. However, the one for the Enterprise-E would be used in Star Trek: Insurrection (1998).
The Pakled ship is said to contain technology acquired from the Jarada, the unseen insectoid race contacted in The Big Goodbye (1988).