Apparently someone (I forget who, probably the director) was unsure about whether they should go that far. So he showed the final cut of the scene to his five-year-old son. When the kid wasn’t noticeably traumatized, the decision was made to keep the scene in as is.
Thats the 80s for you. Someone watched Scanners and was like “yeah, lets do that.”
I gotta wonder if the FX crew was like: eh, this might be the end of the show, who knows if it’ll get picked up… let’s out-do scanners!
Apparently someone (I forget who, probably the director) was unsure about whether they should go that far. So he showed the final cut of the scene to his five-year-old son. When the kid wasn’t noticeably traumatized, the decision was made to keep the scene in as is.
Certainly an attempt at grabbing ratings. Worked, but also paved the way for other weird, gory moments like the Borg body statue by 8472.