Doctor Who: 10 Things You Didn't Know About The Toymaker
4. The Toymaker's Flashbacks Were The First Ones Ever
Despite what The Daleks in Colour may suggest, it's actually 1966's The Celestial Toymaker that's the first Doctor Who serial to feature flashback sequences.
In the serial's first episode, the Toymaker uses a memory window to try and dominate the minds of the Doctor's companions Steven and Dodo.
This reveals some of Dodo's slight backstory. The script reveals that her mother died when she was still in school, as she sees a sad schoolgirl in the Toymaker's memory window, forcing the Doctor to drag her vision away.
The memory window also displays footage from The Daleks' Master Plan and The Massacre as Steven sees himself on both the jungle planet Kembel and in 16th century Paris. This was the first time that Doctor Who deployed footage from earlier adventures.
The irony being that all the stories in question no longer fully exist in the BBC archives! If only someone had an elderly Doctor Who fan and a memory window hooked up to a VCR.