The first-draft script of this show was to be set in 2017, with futuristic costumes and gadgetry and old Dr. Auschlander still going via bionic implants all over his body. NBC balked at the cost of filming that show, and this script was made up just before the writers' strike of 1988. It was filmed after the writers went on the picket lines in mid-March, with the last scene completed being a big kiss between Dr. Ehrlich and Nurse Papandreou. Had this episode been made, it would have accurately predicted that Norman Lloyd, who played Dr. Auschlander, would still be alive in 2017. He turned 103 on November 8, 2017 and died on May 11, 2021 at the age of 106.
The final telecast was the highest-rated in the series' history, ranking #7 for the week with a 17.0/29 rating/share, and was watched by approximately 22.5 million viewers.
Full of inside jokes, including a doctor named Brandon Falsey, a reference to Brand and Falsey, the creators of the show. There was a chase of a "one armed man" (a patient of Dr. Kimble), a reference to the Fugitive. During the chase, someone yells, "Move the gurney, Hal," a reference to Hal Gurnee, Dave Letterman's director. The founder of NBC "General" David Sarnoff (died in 1971) makes an appearance as a character who is having trouble with his eyesight because he watches too much television.
LOGO GIMMICK: In the end credits of the final show, the MTM kitty is shown in a hospital bed having the plug pulled on itself. The MTM kitty in actuality had died the same year the series ended.
Dr. Novino is in the morgue examining Patient 4077 named Henry Blake. His death is believed to have been caused by injuries sustained in a helicopter crash. This is a direct reference to the demise of Lt. Col. Henry Blake at the end of season three of M*A*S*H (1972). Although, in that episode, Radar reports that Henry was in a plane that was shot down over the Sea of Japan, not a helicopter.