Ex Post Facto Behind the Scenes

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 The audience becomes aware that Paris' middle name is Eugene. The name was chosen by the show's producers as a tip of the hat to Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.
   
Aaron Lustig, who plays Professor Ren also plays "Guri" in the Star Trek Enterprise episode The Catwalk.
   
The episode's director, LeVar Burton, plays chief engineer Geordi La Forge in The Next Generation. He plays La Forge, with the rank of captain, in the episode "Timeless".
   
Shooting the episode took place immediately before Christmas 1994. Burton reports that shooting started five days before Christmas on soundstage 8.
   
Thanks to Burton's own acting experience with Treknobabble (as Star Trek technobabble is termed by fans), was able to help Roxann Biggs-Dawson (Torres): "muddle through some uniquely Star Trek technobabble as she struggled with the line, "Vent a couple of LN2 exhaust conduits along the dorsal emitters. Make it look like we're in serious trouble." The line occurs during the attack on Voyager by Numiri patrol ships.
   
The name of the Banean Minister is Kray, but that name appears in the script only and is not mentioned in dialogue.
   
Jeri Taylor: "This to me was a so utterly the least successful story that we did. Michael Piller feels that it was one of the best that we did. We are at odds over this, as we are occasionally. The premise was a great sci-fi premise, the idea of punishment being that the perpetrator experiences his victim's death. That's what we bought. That was sensational. What I did not care for, and Michael Piller and I are at odds about this, is that he rewrote the episode, took it in the direction it went, and he was extremely pleased with it. I thought it was a mistake in an early episode of a franchise which says we're in a new, different, unexplored part of space that's unfamiliar to us, to do an homage to an 1940s American film style. He wanted to do film noir. To me, that was not the way to go." She also felt that the episode "damaged" the character of Tom Paris. "Even though what he had done in real life was different from what the implanted memory device suggested, the show nonetheless gave the impression that he came to this planet and began hitting on (making advances to) the wife of one of its people. It was a very unattractive posturing for him. That's the kind of cliché the character could easily fall into. By that point, I was really fed up with it and after episode six, I didn't allow any more smarmy womanizing references to go through, because that's all we were saying about his character. It was very one-dimensional, very unattractive. Unfortunately, we didn't replace it with anything else, so Tom Paris didn't do much of anything. That's why we needed to develop him in the second season into something more heroic."
   
For his part, Piller defends the script, rejecting the notion that it is a re-make of the episode from The Next Generation called "A Matter of Perspective". Michael Piller: "A lot of people had questions about it and they thought we made Paris and his approach to women unattractive. I thought it had all the elements of Star Trek and science fiction working for it. It had a really strong mystery, a very strong style; it had space battles; it had investigations with Tuvok at the core of it so we could see what he does for a living; it had sex and romance and terrific performances. I was working on this episode and I think it had a lot of original science-fiction ideas. The idea of punishing somebody by making them relive the last few minutes of their victim's life is terrific, as is the idea that somebody would use someone's brain to smuggle information to an enemy. Taking these elements and weaving them into a story that was affecting and intriguing was difficult, and I had a great deal of fun getting into my trench coat and going to the word-processor and doing it."
   
Supervising producer David Livingston: "Piller wanted to do film noir and he wanted to shoot it in black and white. And then he wrote all this noir dialogue, literally. It was questioned why they were speaking American I940s dialogue. It was a little bit on the nose in that regard. Then I suggested a peekaboo haircut for the woman so that she looked like Veronica Lake. I figured if you're gonna do it, go all the way. But the opening sequence was effective and interesting. It was Michael's homage to film noir. Michael was really into 'Pulp Fiction' at the time and he said, 'Everything should be like Pulp Fiction.' I think this was his 'Pulp Fiction'.' Tuvok had always been envisioned by Piller as a Hercule Poirot-like character, although initial plans to cast an older black actor were scuttled when Tim Russ read for the role. In any case, problems in writing the character remained. Unlike Spock, who was half human, Tuvok has no such inner conflict, so of the characters he has been one of the hardest to get to. And Tim has got very strong feelings about where he'd like to see this character go."
   
Tim Russ shares Piller's enthusiasm for the episode, which was the first since the pilot to focus on the Vulcan, which is one reason why I personally like it. David Livingston: "I really enjoyed it. I thought LeVar Burton did a great job of directing the stylized film noir. I love the fact that we get to see the mind-meld from the inside out and got a chance to actually go inside Tuvok's mind and see the meld from his point of view, which has never been done. I thought it was just great."