This episode spoofs Star Trek (1966). Wallace Langham, Liz Vassey, Kate Vernon, Bradley Thompson, David Weddle, Naren Shankar (who wrote the episode) and Ronald D. Moore (the man who shouts "You suck!") all worked on assorted Trek spin-offs in one capacity or another. Also, many of the "fantasy" sequences between Hodges and Simms are obvious spoofs of scenes from Star Trek. For example, the scene where Hodges and Simms are wearing "obedience collars" and Simms is running Hodges through training exercises is clearly an homage to the episode The Gamesters of Triskelion (1968), which has a scene that is nearly identical. Wallace Langham (Hodges) actually has a tie to Star Trek. In 1998 Wallace was in a 5th season episode of Star Trek: Voyager titled "Once Upon A Time" as a hologram character Flotter T. Water III.
The alphabet used for the fictional Vellikon language displayed on Wendy's screen at the end of the episode is the same as the Aurabesh alphabet used in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977).
Hodges phrase to Jim Brass, "he's dead, Jim" is a cliché phrase used extensively by Dr. McCoy to James Kirk in Star Trek.
At the beginning of the episode Hodges and Simms meet in a Whatificon. It's a parody of the original Scificon or "sci-fi's conventions", dedicated exactly to the sci-fi movies and TV series like Star Trek, Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica, among others. In addition, in the Whatificon people went disguised of aliens from movies & TV series, a trademark of the real Scificon.
The gun used in the "Astro Quest Redux" scene is a redressed FN P90 submachine gun, which was featured prominently in Stargate: Atlantis (2004).
Grace Park: (Lt. Sharon 'Boomer' Valerii of Battlestar Galactica (2004)) as a convention guest reacting unfavorably to "Astro Quest Redux".