The marching of thousands of mind-controlled Londoners to Battersea (referred to by the Doctor as "sheep") echoes the Pink Floyd song "Sheep" from their album Animals, where the sheep are led into the "valley of steel" to be slaughtered. The album also features a shot of Battersea Power Station on its cover, with a pig floating above it just like Lumic's own airship. Pink Floyd is known for incorporating the Doctor Who (1963) theme music into live performances of the song "One of These Days".
The Doctor tells his companions that they will attack from three sides; above, between, below. In The Five Doctors (1983), to gain access to the Dark Tower, The Second Doctor recites the Gallifreyan nursery rhyme; "Who unto Rassilon's Tower would go/Must choose Above, Between, Below!".
Roger Lloyd Pack and David Tennant previously appeared as father Barty Crouch and son Barty Crouch Jr (respectably) in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005). In that story, Lloyd-Pack was on the side of the heroes and Tennant was a villain.
The scene with the Cyberman with the malfunctioning emotional inhibitor was meant to be filmed at Victoria Park Playground in Cardiff. At this stage, the woman was called Kerry rather than Sally, and the encounter took place during the journey to Battersea, which meant that it also featured Rose, Mickey, Pete and Jake. This was abandoned due to snowy weather.
Lumic's expression of "Excellent!" is a reference to the off-key rendition of the word that the Cybermen have used in previous stories (beginning with Revenge of the Cybermen: Part One (1975)).