In 1994, writer Sandy Veith won a jury trial against Universal, alleging that the series was based on his idea yet he received no credit or compensation.

The Los Angeles Times reported that jurors seemed to believe the studio came to Brand and Falsey with the basic concept for the show rather than that they knowingly stole Veith's idea.

"[16][17] In Season 6, Episode 15, Joel mails a post card to Maggie from Manhattan, and the zip code of Cicely is shown to be 99729, which is located north of Talkeetna and east of Denali National Park, and includes the town of Cantwell.

"Northern Exposure II" (the main production facility) was in Redmond, Washington, in what is now the headquarters of Genie Industries, behind a business park.

According to The Northern Exposure Book, the moose in the opening titles was named Mort and was provided by Washington State University, where he was part of a captive herd.

[21] (Fox's Roc aired the first U.S. prime-time television episode depicting a same-sex marriage, "Can't Help Loving That Man", on October 20, 1991.)

Entertainment Weekly’s Ken Tucker gave the first episode a B+, writing that the show “may well prove to be summer television’s most likably eccentric series”.

The Region 1 DVD releases have caused controversy among the show's fans due to their high prices and the changes to the soundtrack introduced in order to lower their costs.

[30] In 2016, Darren Burrows and his production company, Film Farms, held a crowdfunding campaign to fund a development project with the goal of creating more episodes.

The revival was originally envisioned as a two-hour "visit to Cicely," but a ten-episode series was reportedly being pitched to various network, cable, and streaming venues.

[34][35] Falsey died in January 2019, and on May 19, 2019, Josef Adalian, an editor for the New York City-based magazine Vulture, tweeted that CBS had canceled development work on the series.

On November 15, 2019, Morrow revealed in an interview on radio station WGN 720AM in Chicago that he and Brand were continuing revival efforts despite Falsey's death and CBS's decision.