Detective John Munch, speaking about some video evidence from a crime scene, says that he'll be "ecstatic" "as long as there's no 18-minute gap". This is a reference to an infamous 18-minute gap in one of the audio tapes President Richard Nixon made of meetings in the White House, which might possibly have contained incriminating evidence.
A deleted scene shows Olivia meeting her father, a man named Robert Spencer, who went to grad school with her mother. He claimed to be unsure whether his sex with Serena Benson was consensual or not. Eventually this was changed to the original story line of a stranger rape.
This is the first episode produced by Neal Baer, who took over as Executive Producer/Showrunner after David J. Burke left. Baer remained the show-runner until the end of season 12 in 2011.
This episode takes place in September, 2000. One of the scenes is titled "Monday, September 11" and is therefore exactly one year to the day before the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001.