On Sunday November 22, 1987, WTTW Channel 11 in Chicago (PBS) was airing the serial when suddenly the station's broadcast signal was illegally hijacked. For about a minute and a half, the episode was interrupted by a broadcast of somebody wearing a Max Headroom (1987) mask, babbling and humming incoherently and then being spanked bare-bottomed with a fly swatter. Some sources say that the perpetrators were never caught, despite national (and worldwide) news coverage and an FBI investigation, while other sources say he was identified as a local college student. The intrusion cut in as Vince turns to get Leela a hot drink, and broke off on the Doctor's verdict of a massive electric shock.
Director Paddy Russell had great problems with Tom Baker during the production of this story. Baker particularly disliked the script and at one point during rehearsals threw his script out of a window. His relationship with co-star Louise Jameson was also very strained. Russell had such an unhappy time that she vowed she would never work on Doctor Who (1963) again after this.
Indirectly inspired by the real life disappearance mystery of three lighthouse keepers in Flannan Isles, Outer Hebrides.
The story was written in a hurry as a replacement for an earlier story about vampires, which was abandoned after a directive from BBC executive Graeme MacDonald that Doctor Who (1963) could not make a story about vampires as it would be interpreted as a send-up of the BBC's new and prestigious adaptation of Count Dracula (1977) starring Louis Jourdan.