Towards the end of the fifth season, executive producer Dick Wolf decided not to renew Chris Noth's contract, citing that the interaction between Logan and the similarly jaded Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) lacked enough dramatic contrast. Viewers and critics were shocked at the dismissal of the most popular and only remaining original cast member at that time. Years later, Noth convinced Wolf to produce Exiled (1998) to wrap up the story of Mike Logan, which Noth felt had been prematurely extinguished on the show.
Final appearance of Chris Noth as Detective Mike Logan in this series. Logan is not seen again until Exiled (1998), which was a TV movie made to wrap up Logan's story. Logan makes an appearance in Stress Position (2005) when he assists the Major Case Squad in investigating the murder of a corrections officer at the prison where Logan's girlfriend works as a nurse. Captain Deakins, Jamey Sheridan, and Detective Goren, Vincent D'Onofrio, were both impressed with Logan's skill as an investigator and Deakins requested that Logan be transferred to the MCS. Logan became a regular character starting in season five of Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001).
This episode appears to be based on the 1978 Dan White case. In 1978, Dan White shot and killed both mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk, reportedly due to his fury at what he saw as the rising trend in gay activism - Milk was the first openly gay elected official in San Francisco history. White's lawyers argued that he had been suffering from severe depression which had inhibited his ability to distinguish right from wrong. Over the years, an urban legend has cropped up claiming that White's lawyers used the "Twinkie Defense" (in other words, eating junk food made him do it), but it was never claimed in court that eating junk food was, in any way, responsible for White's activities - his excessive consumption of junk food was used to show just how depressed he had gotten, but was never blamed.
Richard Bekins played four different characters over the course of the series:
- Episode 5.23 Pride (1995) - Councilman Richard Durban.
- Episode 13.1 American Jihad (2002) - Mr. Landon.
- Episode 15.16 The Sixth Man (2005) - Basketball Commissioner.
- Episode 20.20 The Taxman Cometh (2010) - Roger Weil.