Episode Behind the Scenes

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Jeri Taylor nominated this episode as the favorite of the year. Taylor herself is a self confessed addict of as number of trashy genres such as gothic romances and historical novels.
   
Jeri Taylor on Gates McFadden's performance in "Sub Rosa" - "The lovemaking without a partner - this is not easy stuff to do and she committed herself to it completely."
   
Brannon Braga thought this episode qualified as "pushing the Trek envelope" - "I've come to notice that whenever you infuse a show with sexual themes, some of these fans seem to short-circuit, I mean, the weather array malfunction causing thunderstorms - it was fun!"
   
The set for the show was built completely indoors by Richard James and used incredibly clever lighting by Jonathan West. The set was built in the usual shuttlebay/cargo bay set area and included a huge tree assembled by greensmen on top of a real trunk anchored to the set and cut-off branches refastened.
   
In jokes created by the art department for this episode include tombstones for "Vader", "McFly" and others from the sci-fi genre.
   
Ellen Albertini Dow (Felisa) was actually Propmaster Alan Sims' college drama teacher whom he hadn't seen since 1972.
   
Set decorator Jim Mees was asked to come up with an order of three hundred camellias out of their season, but ended up raiding Paramount's floral vaults and gathering all manner of flowers which were subsequently topped with the camellias.
   
The Howard family name was an homage to line producer Merri D Howard.
   
Brannon Braga named Felisa after his own grandmother who'd died shortly before the story was written.
   
In a cut scene, Beverly would open the show with the same eulogy Braga's own mother used for his grandmother - a recipe for gingerbread "baked in the arms of a welcoming pan in a happily heated oven" as a sign of her love of cooking.
   
Brannon Braga took the names "Jessel" and "Ned Quint" from Turn of the Screw and later found out his made up name Ronin was actually Japanese.
   
Duncan Regehr (Ronin) went on to play the recurring character of First Minister Shakaar Edon in spinoff DS9.
   
The crew found it a challenge to produce a convincing ghost with visual FX , David Stipes recalls - "The challenge was to get the ghost. I thought everyone was really courageous in tackling this story. But if we didn't make that work, the whole story wouldn't sell - how to do purposeful, borderline-erotic ephemerals to look like it's caressing and hugging Beverly - without looking ridiculous or lewd?"

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