According to Trekweb, LeVar Burton who played Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) went to the producers and told them he was "ashamed" that he had directed this episode.
Ten years after this episode aired, Brannon Braga called "Extinction" "one of the singularly most embarrassing episodes of Star Trek I've ever been involved with."
Dedicated to the memory of Jerry Fleck, the show's first assistant director. This was the last episode on which he worked before dying in his sleep at the age of fifty-five.
This episode shares plot elements with Identity Crisis (1991), where Geordi La Forge is transformed into another species in an extremely short time span, as well as Genesis (1994).
This is the episode where the series' title change from Enterprise to Star Trek: Enterprise in the opening credits.