10 Doctor Who Characters More Important Than You Realised

This list could be doubled if it included the weird and wonderful information revealed about seemingly minor Doctor Who characters in expanded media.

Making just one exception in that case, it's worth looking at the mad information revealed about the very first character seen in Doctor Who: the policeman who patrols Totter's Lane in the very first scene ever broadcast.

Originally played by Fred Rawlings in the failed pilot, he was replaced by Reg Cranfield in the final episode – making him the first Doctor Who character to regenerate. And if that's not enough, expanded media reveals some fascinating information about this seemingly ordinary copper.

An audio drama entitled The Last Day at Work establishes that this policeman was Constable Bernard Whittam, an extension of the TARDIS' chameleon circuit that became independent and sentient after the Doctor made a swift getaway in An Unearthly Child, generating his own parents and a wife! The Second Doctor encounters Bernard five years later, and has to deactivate the whole Whittam family.

Who knew that the TARDIS' chameleon circuit was that powerful? It certainly makes you view that very first scene in a completely different light.