Trivia / Star Trek: The Next Generation S1E21 "Symbiosis"

• Ascended Fanon: A variation, since the Star Trek Expanded Universe novels aren't generally considered canon per se, but when the episode first aired many fans took Tasha's lengthy description of the effects of drugs as proof that Tasha herself had once been a drug addict. Mostly this was just because it made the scene seem like actual Character Development for Tasha instead of the Drugs Are Bad lecture it really was, but the various Star Trek novel writers seized upon this and explicitly wrote that Tasha tended to waver in and out of addiction during the course of her childhood and teenage years. Of course, given that she spent her pre-Starfleet years dodging rape gangs on a Crapsack World, drug addiction doesn't seem at all implausible, and Denise Crosby herself agreed with this interpretation of the speech.
• Creator Backlash: The lecture about drugs was added by showrunner Maurice Hurley over the objections of the cast. Hurley himself later admitted that it came across as very clumsy and out of place. Averted, weirdly enough, by the person who actually delivered the speech, Denise Crosby, who was just glad for something that gave Tasha any hint of a backstory.
• Hostility on the Set: Rick Berman ripped Denise's badge off her outfit after filming, stating that she "wouldn't be needing it again". He later tweeted with an apparently selective memory that she'd given it to him willingly before Denise corrected him.
• Money, Dear Boy: Merritt Butrick took the role of T'Jon mostly because he was being financially crippled by the costs for his AIDS medication, and couldn't get health insurance.
• Out of Order: In some countries, this episode originally aired after "Skin of Evil" (as "Skin of Evil" was actually filmed first).
• Prop Recycling: The freighter ship is the Talarian freighter model reused from "Heart Of Glory", which itself was cobbled together from models used in the V miniseries and Captain EO.
• What Could Have Been: Denise Crosby has mentioned that if there had been more scenes like the one where Tasha was explaining to Wesley about drug addiction (and subtly suggesting that she knew from experience), she might not have left the show.
• Word of St. Paul: While the writers haven't said anything one way or the other about whether Tasha's speech to Wesley was merely her recounting drug use she had witnessed on her homeworld, or her indirectly confessing to having been a former addict herself, Denise Crosby prefers to think of the latter one as being true.
• Writer on Board: The episode was inspired by Maurice Hurley's work on Miami Vice.
• You Look Familiar: The actors who play T'Jon and Sobi, Merritt Butrick and Judson Earney Scott, had much more prominent roles in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, namely David Marcus and Joachim respectively.

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