Gene Roddenberry fired director Russ Mayberry because he objected to the casting of African actors as the Ligonians who portrayed to be a primitive race.
In a 2012 interview, Brent Spiner recalled, "It was just a racist episode. Maybe not intentionally but it felt that way and looked that way. It was the third episode so it was fortuitous that we did our worst that early on and it never got quite that bad again."
Along with Haven (1987), this is one of only two episodes of the series in which Michael Dorn (Worf) does not appear.
At the 2013 Toronto Comic Con's "An Evening With the Cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation", Michael Dorn (who is not in this episode) referred to this episode as "the worst episode of Star Trek ever filmed" to agreement from the rest of the cast and the crowd.