This is the only episode where Deanna Troi does the opening log entry.
First TNG appearance of actress Michelle Forbes, who because of her performance in this episode, was brought back as a recurring character, the Bajoran Ensign Ro Laren.
The number 4077 appears on an LCARS computer display. Guest star David Ogden Stiers appeared in the TV series M*A*S*H (1972) as a surgeon at the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital.
This episode was likely inspired by the novel "Pebble in the Sky" by the famous sci-fi author Isaac Asimov, which depicts a future Earth in which the inhabitants were also required to end their lives at the age of 60, as depicted in the alien world in this episode.
The first scene in which Picard exits the turbolift and peeks around the corner in fear of encountering Lwaxana, is mirrored in The Forsaken (1993), when Odo, then Lwaxana's romantic target, does the same thing. Yet eventually he, like Picard in this one, fails to avoid the confrontation.