This is the second Star Trek franchise episode based upon Barry Longyear's 1980 novella "Enemy Mine" (filmed as Enemy Mine (1985)). The other episode was The Enemy (1989).
This episode was directed by Roxann Dawson, who played B'Elanna Torres in Star Trek: Voyager (1995).
This episode establishes that transporting a patient with "acute cellular breakdown" may be fatal.
When reminiscing about his experiences on Enterprise, Tucker mentions the Great Plume of Agosoria (from Cold Front (2001)), riding in a Suliban ship ('Broken Bow'/The Communicator (2002)), spending the night with a princess (Precious Cargo (2002)) and becoming pregnant (Unexpected (2001)), as well as various other adventures that have not been shown.
This episode is similar to The Enemy (1989), Darmok (1991), and Gravity (1999). In all of these, a main character is trapped on a planet and must befriend an initially distrustful alien to survive.