John de Lancie and Richard Dean Anderson worked together in a first season episode of MacGyver (1985). de Lancie played a character named Brian Ashford in episode twenty, "The Escape".
John De Lancie and Richard Dean Anderson worked together again in Stargate SG1.
The character of Janos Bartok is based on real-life inventor, engineer, and futurist Nikola Tesla. Bartok's introduction includes him sitting and reading while surrounded by electrical arcs, replicating a famous photo of Tesla. Sparking of metallic objects and Bartok's tower in the first episode are a direct reference to Tesla's experiments with his Wardenclyffe Tower. Several of his stories, especially those related to Thomas Edison, are very similar to events that Tesla experienced.