Once the contract was signed, Welles was expected to make a further 25 episodes in 25 weeks spread out over nine months, with the first broadcast scheduled for September 1955.

Welles spent much of 1955 working on writing, directing and acting in his London stage production Moby Dick—Rehearsed, and after that flopped on the West End, he switched to shooting an (aborted) film adaptation of the play, first in London, and then in Rome – filming Moby Dick—Rehearsed in Rome was under the pretext of working on the Around the World with Orson Welles TV series.

[1]: 202 Welles had effectively abandoned the production to move back to the USA at the end of 1955, so the fourth and sixth episodes were particularly badly hit.

The documentary was based on the controversial Dominici murder case in France, and contained interviews with many of the principals shortly after the trial.

[1]: 309 [5] Sets containing what were then thought to be the five sole surviving broadcast episodes and "The Dominici Affair" were separately released on both VHS and DVD.