The cameo with John Cleese and Eleanor Bron occurred when their friend, Douglas Adams, learned that they would be working at the BBC Television Centre on a separate matter on the day of shooting of the museum scene. Seeing the opportunity, Adams asked if they would be willing to appear in a short scene. They agreed with the conditions that there would be no pre-publicity for their appearance and they would be listed in the credits as "Helen Swanetsky" and "Kim Bread." As it happens, the BBC agreed to the former and declined on the latter condition, crediting them by their real names.
This episode contains possibly the largest number of Bond actors for a Doctor Who episode. Of the nine credited cast members, four have appeared in Bond films - Catherine Schell appeared (under the name Catherina von Schell) in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Julian Glover played Kristatos in For Your Eyes Only (1981), John Cleese played R, subsequently Q, in The World Is Not Enough (1999) and Die Another Day (2002), and Tom Chadbon appears in Casino Royale (2006).
This episode holds the "Doctor Who" (1963) series rating record with 16.1 million viewers. However, the story was transmitted during the 1979 ITV technician's strike, which took the ITV network off the air for nearly 11 weeks (from 10 August to 24 October) and left the BBC with no significant competition as there were only three television channels in the UK at that time (BBC 1, BBC 2, and ITV).
When the Doctor, Romana and Duggan brush past the two art critics and enter the Tardis, the Doctor adjusts his scarf to keep from tripping and it hits Romana squarely in the face.