To prevent the episode from getting boring, whenever they had to do scenes over again, Jonathan Frakes would re-shoot them from different angles and perspectives to give it a fresh twist on the same story.
To create the explosion of the Enterprise, the production team built an Enterprise model kit, stuffed it with firecrackers, and blew it up while shooting it from multiple angles. Because it was the destruction of the Enterprise, the producers considered it a special occasion, which called for a more realistic and impressive explosion.
The production team had hoped to get Kirstie Alley in a cameo role behind her Cheers (1982) costar Kelsey Grammer in the USS Bozeman shots, reprising her role as Lt. Saavik from the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), but her asking price was too high for such a small role.
With the Season One finale The Neutral Zone (1988) establishing the year to be 2364 for Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) Season One, and this episode taking place during Season Five, this would mean this episode takes place in the year 2368. The USS Bozeman came through the rift from the year 2278, 90 years earlier. The Bozeman crew uniforms seem to be from the time period between Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), which fits in with this theory.
The model used for the USS Bozeman was a slight modification of the Miranda class USS Reliant model used in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982).
Kelsey Grammer: as Captain Morgan Bateson. Grammer asked for a role on the show due to being a huge Star Trek (1966) fan. ST:TNG regulars Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner made cameos in Grammer's vehicle Frasier (1993), the spin-off of Cheers (1982). Stewart and Grammer co-star again as Professor Xavier and Beast in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006).