Nearly fifteen years later, director Rod Holcomb would direct the show's final episode: And in the End... (2009).
Despite being credited throughout the entire 15 season run, this is the only episode to be penned by creator Michael Crichton.
Miguel Ferrer plays an uncredited role of a patient who is diagnosed as having terminal lung cancer. Twenty three years later Ferrer would succumb to throat cancer. Both the character he played and Ferrer in real life were heavy smokers.
The pilot wasn't shot in a set, but in an abandoned hospital (the Linda Vista Community Hospital in East Los Angeles). When the set was built, it was modeled after the real hospital, but it's not an exact replica: looking carefully it's possible to see several differences. For example, the entire corridor that goes around the curtained area 3 is absent in the pilot.