This episode featured the cast from Ryan (1973), with the exception of Pamela Stephenson, who had resigned from her role as Julie King following the completion of the first season. Reference was made to her character to explain her absence.
At the time this episode was made, 39 episodes of Ryan (1973) had been completed and no decision had yet been made on whether a second series would go into production, so the appearance of the Ryan cast was intended to bridge the gap.
To avoid retrenchments and make use of both the Homicide and Ryan (1973) film crews, production of Homicide was doubled up from this episode - each week, one episode would be made by the Homicide crew, and the other by the Ryan crew, with two directors and two sets of guest actors. One crew worked with a green script, the other with a yellow script. Production of Homicide reverted to normal when the Ryan crew were stood down following the decision not to proceed with a second series.
The crews of Homicide and Ryan (1973) didn't know it at the time, but they set a precedent for shooting two hours per week that would become a common practice later in the 1970's when Crawford Productions moved from producing drama series to drama serials, though later productions such as Cop Shop (1977) and Skyways (1979), both produced for Seven, had much larger casts to share the load of shooting two episodes in six days.