Tenagra Observatories, an internet-based network of telescopes sharing information on stellar phenomena, took its name from this episode. The Tenagra project links observatories located in Arizona, USA, Perth, W. Australia and Oslo, Norway.
This episode has been used by linguistics teachers to aid in students' understanding of how languages work and evolve.
The story about Gilgamesh and Enkidu is from one of the world's earliest known literary works, a Babylonian poem entitled the Epic of Gilgamesh, said to have been dated from around 2150BC - 2000BC. The story of Gilgamesh and Enkidu at Uruk is itself a metaphor for the situation of Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel: two people, initially combatants, come together to become friends and fight a common foe, a battle in which one of them is struck down and the other mourns his loss.
Paul Winfield (Captain Dathon) had previously played Captain Terrell in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982).