Trivia / Star Trek Voyager S 3 E 2 "Flashback"

• Creator's Favorite Episode: Kate Mulgrew named this as one of her eight favourite episodes from the third season, describing it as "quite good."
• Milestone Celebration: This was Voyager's way of commemorating thirty years of Star Trek.
• Wag the Director: According to George Takei, Tim Russ made some changes to the script, immediately eliciting the writers to correct some discrepancies. Takei explained, "He made script changes that made Tuvok's behavior consistent with Vulcan culture where the writers had been derelict. For example, the script suggested that Tuvok had an affair with a non-Vulcan before his pon farr. He made sure that was corrected." Additionally, Russ inadvertently drove Brannon Braga to include more about Tuvok's backstory in the episode than had originally been scripted, being particularly instrumental in the writing of what Tuvok says to Janeway while in his bunk aboard the Excelsior. "Initially that whole speech wasn't in there, a page and a half of dialogue," Russ revealed. "She asked me, 'What made you come back to Starfleet?' and [Braga] had written some line which really wasn't consistent with Vulcan character. I said, 'Brannon, the line itself doesn't work.' So I said, 'Give him a real reason why he came back to Starfleet.' I expected a paragraph, and I ended up getting a page and a half of dialogue. Things like that do make a difference."
• What Could Have Been:
  • The episode was originally to have started with the log entry that, in the episode's final version, immediately follows the breakfast scene.
  • Brannon Braga originally wrote a scene in which Nyota Uhura, via viewscreen, provided some necessary plot points from the bridge of the USS Enterprise-A. Nichelle Nichols declined her invitation to appear in the episode, however, due to the limitedness of her part. George Takei referred to Uhura's part of the installment as "a nice little scene" and clarified, "She would have communicated with me, as Uhura to Tuvok, over the viewscreen. I pleaded with her on the phone to do it because it would have been wonderful to have her back as well. She felt the part did not do her justice, so she passed on doing it." Braga remarked, "I would have liked to have had Uhura, but we had to write […] her out. We couldn't make a deal with her."

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