The scientists were Dr. Adrian Cowlacey (Fry), a practicing clinician at St. Thomas' Hospital, London, and Max Belhaven (Laurie) of the Bastard Institute in California.

The show later went into a debate between a member of clergy, The Bishop of Horley, The Very Reverend Previous Lockhort (John Savident) and Martin Bealey (Robbie Coltrane), an anti-communist journalist who claimed the Soviets were using genetics to invade Britain.

[3] The Crystal Cube was designed by the BBC to provide a pilot for Fry and Laurie, who after working in the ITV comedy series Alfresco were beginning to be seen as a double act.

The BBC were not expecting that the show Fry and Laurie made would combine elements of science fiction and mockumentary,[citation needed] and as a result, the pilot was not commissioned into a series.

In The Crystal Cube, Harris Edgley-Woad, a fictional early genetics pioneer, was said to have been born in a working-class home that his parents had built for him in the grounds of their Gloucestershire estate.