NBC and Warner Bros. TV both had agreed that Season 14 would be the show's last year, and the producers planned to have every major former series regular return for stories. However, the WGA strike wiped out months of Season 14 production in 2007-08, and so the network and studio agreed to have a 15th and last season to send the show off in style.
At the start of the episode, a firefighter calls for a saw, from someone called Dannaker.
Ed Lauter played Fire Captain Dannaker on six episodes between 1998 and 2002, though he does not appear in this episode.
Mekhi Phifer, along with fellow longtime regular actors Goran Visjnic and Maura Tierney, thought that Season 14 would be the final one for the show, and told producers he would not return at all for Season 15. However, Phifer agreed to a compromise in which his final ever appearance as Dr. Greg Pratt would be in an episode that was filmed in the Season 14 production schedule and then aired as the Season 15 premiere. Visjnic and Tierney liked this idea and asked the producers if they could the same thing, and the producers agreed, so the 3rd episode of S15 was also filmed as the last one inside the Season 14 schedule and marked their final appearances as regulars.
This is the last episode in which Maura Tierney receives top billing. Although "The Book of Abby" only has one scene with Luka in which he doesn't even speak, Goran Visnijic receives top billing in that episode.