executive producer maurice hurley was pleased with the outcome of the episode, saying "the sets, the design of it and the look of that show was brilliant, i thought that might have been the best-looking show of the first season". however, he felt that the characterisations weren't quite right. this was the same opinion as that put forward by actor brent spiner, who portrayed both data and lore, who thought that data's actions were not in line with his expectations of the character. this episode was the second and last appearance of biff yeager as chief engineer argyle. he was the only one of the chief engineers introduced during the first season to appear twice, with geordi la forge (levar burton) gaining the role in season two. wil wheaton later recalled that the stand-in actor used in this episode really irritated spiner, and was never used again. he described the stand-in as looking like "a break dancer doing the robot" whenever he had to portray data or lore, and said that "i think the guy was really into playing an android, and his enthusiasm got cranked up to eleven, but by the end of the week, pretty much everyone wanted to deactivate him and sell him to the nearest jawa." the events of the episode would be followed up in later seasons, with the crystalline entity returning in the fifth-season episode "silicon avatar". brent spiner reprised the role of lore in the episodes "" and "".