Brannon Braga (Writer) on 'Phantasms' - "The episode was fun and easy and it turned out great, but the cake was the big thing: the production team, for some reason, God bless them, it through them for a loop!"
	Brannon Braga had originally wanted a full length anatomically correct cake with more gore, but he was reigned back by Rick Berman and simplified to what staff members thought they'd finally agreed on - a torso cake on a cutaway table.
	Alan Sims (Prop Master) had originally intended building the cake over Sirtis' body to use her own limbs, realized two hours before the shoot that a life sized torso wasn't that large after all. Store-bought sponge cakes were added on and color matched frostings were jury-rigged!
	Alan Sims on the cake disaster - "The producer's there now, the production manager's there now, everyone's upset, Patrick's upset. You can't see it before shooting day, so that's why I ask these questions in the production meetings - 'You want arms or you want it like a Venetian statue?'"
	Richard James (Designer) on Phantasms - "Dreams are not practical because no matter what you do someone's gonna say 'Oh, that's not what I thought it was going to look like'. You virtually have to throw the head back because otherwise the heads going to be looking right into the cake, but they didn't want her 'thrown back'."
	Jim Mees (Set Decorator) on Phantasms - "I thought everyone was going to kill each other! It was one of those things that if you could have you'd have pretended you were dying in a hospital rather than come to work!"
	Brannon Braga on the Data stabbing Troi scene - "It's really a very shocking moment, very disturbing - I fully expected children in the audience to scream about Data hiding in the closet to their parents!"
	Lines cut for time include Data mentioning he has studied 138 dream theories including Dr Syrus of Tilona IV ("Frame of Mind"), a banquet featuring Ktarian Spice Cake and a Bajoran Aqueduct Management keynote speech ("Birthright, Part I").
	Braga named Ensign Tyler after his girlfriend's niece.
	Clyde Kusatsu reprises his character of Admiral Nakamura from Season 2's "The Measure of a Man".
	Extra Joyce Robinson is called Ensign Gates as a homage to Gates McFadden.
	The 'new' hatch cover was meant to be an all new reactor core but was cut for budget restraints.
	Among the props in Data's room are a phaser, Jenna D'Sora's gift ("In Theory"), his gear from Dixon Hill ("The Big Goodbye") and Sherlock Holmes ("Elementary, Dear Data").
	In a huge blooper, Spot is clearly referred to as a male cat here, and will later change to a female ("Force of Nature", "Genesis").

If you have some more behind the scenes information, send it in.

BACK TO EPISODES HOME, BACK TO PHANTASMS INDEX, Quick Section Links: Behind the Scenes, Credits, Guest Characters, Quotes, Screencaps, Script, Synopsis, Trivia