The music by Geoffrey Burgon was created by five musicians playing a combination of flute, clarinet, harp, violin, cello, clavichord and percussion.
This episode was watched by 6.1 million viewers on its original transmission. This was a considerable drop of 2.3 million viewers from the previous episode due to the fact that two of the regions in the ITV network began showing the new high-budget sci-fi series Space: 1999 (1975) in the same timeslot opposite Doctor Who. Although this particular drop in ratings was only brief, ITV would use this tactic again in 1977 when they screened Man from Atlantis (1977) and most prominently in 1980 when they screened Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979), the latter of which destroyed Doctor Who's ratings to the extent the BBC then moved it out of its traditional Saturday early evening slot and into a weekday evening slot.
The original cliffhanger involved the monster attacking the Doctor as he rows across Loch Ness, rather than traversing Tullock.