Although this series was criticized for severely bowdlerizing the original footage, this episode has an example of the American producers occasionally improving some episodes' story logic. Namely, in the original footage when the Phoenix is caught in the hatch in the villain's ship that is plummeting to the ocean, the team's leader has to persuade the team about the need to transmute into its Fiery Phoenix form to escape certain death. However, in this re-edit, no one on the team has any objections to using that obvious option in the face of such otherwise inescapable peril.
The initial design for Zoltar was scrapped in favor of one drawn by uncredited character designer, Yoshitaka Amano. The previous design was used for Commander Gorok in the first two episodes.