This episode appears to be based on three high-profile stalking cases involving actresses:
- Rebecca Schaeffer, who was stalked and then shot dead by Robert Bardo, who obtained her address through DMV records, prompting the passage of anti-stalking laws in California. Schaeffer was best known for her role in the sitcom My Sister Sam (1986).
- Theresa Saldana, the stalking victim of Arthur Richard Jackson, a 46 year old drifter from Aberdeen, Scotland. Jackson stabbed her in the torso 10 times, with a 5 1/2 inch knife, near the front of her home in broad daylight, almost killing her. Saldana recovered after 4 hours of surgery, and a 4-month hospital stay. It was later revealed that he had hired a private investigator to obtain her mother's phone number.
- Andrea Evans, who dropped out of public view for nearly a decade. Years later she revealed that she had left to escape a persistent stalker who became too familiar with her schedule and kept showing up at the set, and had later gone as far as breaking into the ABC studios in New York City, intent on killing her.
Title drop: The newspaper Captain Cragen is reading while the credits are displayed has the episode title "Star Struck" as a headline.
Allison Janney makes her first appearance in the series. She would make a second and more prominent appearance in Old Friends (1994) as a different character, Ann Madsen.
This episode represents a nifty bit of casting references to WWII-themed shows. First, Blanche Baker and Michael Moriarty appeared in the miniseries Holocaust (1978). Moriarty played a Nazi officer, and Baker played a Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz, condemned to death in the gas chambers. Werner Klemperer was perhaps most famous for his portrayal of Colonel Klink in Hogan's Heroes (1965). In addition, although Klink was a German officer, Klemperer himself was a Jew, as were three of his fellow actors in HH who were also featured prominently as German officers. Baker, Moriarty, and Klemperer all won Emmys for their respective portrayals in Holocaust and Hogan's Heroes.