[3] The Forsyte Saga was the last major British drama serial to be made in black and white, even though the BBC was preparing for full-time colour transmission.

In an interview included on the DVD release, Wilson admits he would have loved to have shot the programme in colour but delaying recording would have meant re-casting and he felt he had the perfect cast for the adaptation.

[4] Although never credited, the music that opens and closes each episode is the first movement, "Halcyon Days", from the suite The Three Elizabeths written in the early 1940s by Eric Coates.

It was when the series was later repeated on Sunday evenings on BBC1, starting on 8 September 1968, that the programme's success was secured with 18 million tuning in for the final episode in 1969.

[1][7] A retrospective on the series when it was screened by the American PBS in the Masterpiece Theatre slot comments: Viewers remember the way the nation shut down each Sunday night for the event.

Following its transmission in 1967 by RTÉ, Ireland's public broadcaster, the BBC production won a Jacob's Award at the annual presentation ceremony in Dublin.

[8] The series' success prompted companies to invest in similarly scaled drama serials, which resulted in programmes such as Upstairs, Downstairs and The Pallisers.