Voted by fans as the greatest Doctor Who (1963) serial of all time in Outpost Gallifrey's poll in 2003 to celebrate 40 years of the series.
Christopher Eccleston watched The Talons of Weng-Chiang in preparation for being cast as The Doctor.
Russell T. Davies praised Robert Holmes' writing, particularly for this story - "Take The Talons of Weng-Chiang, for example. Watch episode one. It's the best dialogue ever written. It's up there with Dennis Potter. By a man called Robert Holmes. When the history of television drama comes to be written, Robert Holmes won't be remembered at all because he only wrote genre stuff. And that, I reckon, is a real tragedy."
Tom Baker once said of this serial: "The BBC is very good at period drama but not very good at giant rats."
The portrayal of the Chinese in this story, the inclusion of some racial humour and the casting of white British actor John Bennett as Li H'sen Chang resulted in the serial being banned by some North American television stations.