Originally titled "A Matter of Breeding", director Corey Allen said the episode intended to move away from the "squeaky clean" plots of "". After the franchise's creator Gene Roddenberry banned disagreements between characters in "The Next Generation", this became one of the main elements that the producers wanted to include in the new series. In the episode, this was shown by O'Brien releasing Tosk, but originally, during the teaser segment at the beginning, it was intended to show dabo girl Miss Sarda propositioning Commander Sisko. "We had long conversations on that and ultimately came down on the conservative side, but we'd never even had that kind of conference on "TNG"", Allen explained. Executive producer Michael Piller wrote the episode with writer Jill Sherman Donner, who had previous credits on television shows such as "Magnum P.I."