Trivia / Star Trek The Next Generation S 7 E 14 Lower Decks

• Recycled Script: This episode's co-writer Ron Wilkerson reused the concept of showing the main characters from the perspective of junior officers in the Stargate SG-1 episode "Proving Ground".
• What Could Have Been:
  • The writers considered bringing back Sito on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, having been found imprisoned in a Cardassian prison and struggling to re-adjust to life in Starfleet. This was abandoned when they decided the highly moving ending of "Lower Decks" would be compromised in retrospect. The story was eventually reworked into the season 4 episode "Hard Time", an "O'Brien must suffer" episode. So as far as anyone is concerned, Sito is dead.
  • Had TNG been renewed for an 8th season, Taurik would've become a recurring character. Alexander Enberg, who played Taurik, would play Vorik on Star Trek: Voyager, who is essentially the same as Taurik except with a slightly different first name.
  • At one point, the writers considered featuring Lieutenant Barclay in this episode, but they decided he was too familiar already.
  • Guinan was supposed to appear in the episode. But since Whoopi Goldberg was unavailable during filming, the character of Ben was created to fill her place.