Jerry Hardin had never played Mark Twain before, but he became so enamoured with the character after this that he created a one-man touring show about him.
Executive producers Michael Piller and Rick Berman had at first not wanted to end Season 5 with a cliffhanger. But they changed their minds when Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) went into production at this point. Piller remarked: "Because of all the attention DS9 was getting and the rumors that TNG was shutting down, we wanted to send a message that the show was alive, well and continuing to grow."
Marc Alaimo, later to play Gul Dukat in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993), makes an appearance as one of the poker players that Data cleans out. It is his fourth and final "Next Generation" appearance.
This is the last time Gene Roddenberry is credited as Executive Producer of a Star Trek production, almost one year after his death.
The title is in reference to British astrophysicist Arthur Stanley Eddington's 1927 concept that time is run as a "one-way direction" or "asymmetry" and that its direction can be determined by studying the organization of atoms, molecules, and bodies.