Some of the crash footage used was stock footage from Lost Flight (1970), which Lloyd Bridges starred in.
The opening sequence of this episode marks the first time Oscar Goldman addresses Steve Austin as "pal."
The title is based on the expression "survival of the fittest", the concept in the Darwinian theory of evolution postulating that organisms which are best adapted to their environment, and thus their offspring, will survive, while those less-well suited will not.
Christine Belford (Lt. Colby) and Laurette Spang (Yeoman Helen Maychick) would later appear together on "Battlestar Galactica: Gun on Ice Planet Zero, Part 1 and 2" (1978).