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.
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."
Christopher Eccleston watched The Talons of Weng-Chiang in preparation for being cast as The Doctor.
Tom Baker once said of this serial: "The BBC is very good at period drama but not very good at giant rats."
According to an interview with Deep Roy, Johnny Depp frequently calls this his all-time favorite serial in Doctor Who.