Braga wanted the episode to be broken into a two-part episode because of what he called "a wealth of material", what Kate Mulgrew would later describe as "every scene" containing a monologue. However, nobody else on the staff wanted to end the first season on a cliffhanger, as the first half would have been. Braga therefore condensed it into one episode, and admitted to struggling with the story, pointing out dramatically different tones in the first three acts as compared to the final two. Ultimately, though, he was satisfied with the end result and how the story came back around to focus on the "Voyager" crew in the end.