agreed to appear in the episode with the exception of James Doohan, whose agent replied, "No way." Because of this, the episode's working title was jokingly named "We got everybody but Scotty" and so Scotty was replaced with "Welshie". DeForest Kelley was physically portrayed but had no lines due to his death in 1999. William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy recorded their lines together, which was unusual as actors usually record solo. Goodman later joined the writing staff of Star Trek: Enterprise. Several designs for the energy being were considered for this episode; however, the final version was decided upon due to a desire to keep the design simple. Shinagawa noted that even so, the final design for Melllvar is more sophisticated than some energy beings featured in the original series. Cultural references This episode contains many story elements based on episodes of Star Trek. In the DVD audio commentary, Goodman noted his pride in having included a large number of quotations from The Original Series, particularly those items which he claims "the people on the internet" had not found on their own. He noted that in "Shatner's Log", based on Star Treks "Captain's log", the line "The impossible has happened" quotes the opening log in "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Broadcast and reception Although the episode was not the last episode produced for season four, it was used as the season finale for the fourth broadcast season, being broadcast on April 21, 2002, on Fox in the United States. The episode was subsequently nominated for a Nebula Award in 2004 for best script, but lost to the film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002). Prior to the broadcast, Dusty Saunders previewed the episode for Rocky Mountain News, calling Futurama "under-appreciated" and that this episode had "Lots of fun and fantasy at the expense of the noted sci-fi series." Zack Handlen, while writing for The A.V. Club, gave the episode an 'A' grade. He said that the storyline could have been seen as "pretty mean-spirited if there wasn't such a clear thread of Trek love running through the episode". He felt that having the framing device set during the event rather than afterwards as "delightful", and that the Star Trek references were both "relevant to the story and funny in their own right". Andy Wilson reviewed the episode for BigShinyRobot, calling it the "greatest animated homage to