Yesterday, I looked at the new 3 ¾” Doctor figure from Character Options, and I was less than delighted with the final outcome. I promise you that this initial wave of figures will improve as we get into the baddies next week, but not today. Today we’re looking at The Doctor’s sexy little companion, Clara. Hang on, I’m going to need to pour a glass of Jameson for this one.

There’s the packaging. It’s the same as what we say yesterday, so let’s not dwell on it.

CO had a few different outfits to choose from for the Clara figure, but they decided to layer her with two coats over her dress. The result is that she looks bulky, and that kind of dampens the appeal of this particular character. Knowatamean? Not that I think they could have accurately reproduced Ms. Coleman’s curves in this scale. Oh no. You would need plastic craftsmen far more talented than CO’s stable to make that happen. Anyway, the body sculpt is passable and there’s some decent paintwork for the pattern on her dress. The legs on mine came a tad warped out of the package, but she will stand on her own. She’s also nicely scaled against The Doctor as she comes up to just past her shoulder.

And then there’s the portrait. Wow. It’s weird, because I can kind of tell it’s supposed to be Jenna Louise Coleman, but it looks like she’s puffing out her cheeks and pulling a mad face. They got the hair right, and she does have a pretty round face, which is reflected here, but it’s a little too round and puffy and the paint on her eyes make them look like they’re bugging out of her head. There’s also a huge blue blotch of paint on the back of her head.

Articulation on Clara is different from The Doctor and I find that to also be weird. It’s supposed to be a cohesive line of figures, CO, so pick an articulation style and go with it. Anyway, instead of ball joints in the shoulders, Clara has simple rotating joints. To make up for it, she has swivel cuts in the biceps and forearms, and she has hinged elbows. She has hinged knees, and her head rotates. Presumably, she has a T-crotch, but her dress renders any articulation above the knees useless. You won’t get a lot of action poses out of Clara, but I suppose she’s articulated enough to make soufflés.

Clara comes with two accessories. You get the same figure stand that came with The Doctor, and you get a red handbag. The handbag seems pretty pointless. I don’t even recall her carrying it much in the show. Something more useful would have been cool, like maybe the laptop from “The Bells of St. John.”

All told, Clara falls in about the same level of mediocrity as The Doctor. The sculpt is barely passable and the articulation isn’t great. But Clara feels like a bigger disappointment simply because this figure is the reason we won’t be getting her in the five-inch scale. I’ve already got three different 11^th Doctors in my 5-inch scale collection, so that wasn’t such a big deal. But with Clara, here’s where it begins to sink in. This is what we got instead of what would have surely been a better figure in the old scale, and there’s just no reason for it. Maybe if CO releases a console room, and not a cardboard one, it will be worth it down the line, but we’ve seen no indication that that’s going to happen. Next week, things in the 3 ¾” Doctor Who line will improve as I go through the rest of the wave.

 “Change, my dear, and it seems not a moment too soon.”

– The Sixth Doctor, The Caves of Androzani.

Yes, we are indeed getting change from Character Options, but I’m not so sure about whether it was a moment too soon. It’s no secret I loved CO’s five-inch scale Doctor Who figures, although I’ll concede that I bought a lot more of the Classic line than the NuWho figures. The reason, of course, wasn’t the scale, but rather the figures based on the current series were often victims of poor character selections and the releases were few and far between. I can tick off a dozen figures from either Series 6 or 7 that I would have bought in an instant, but we never got them. Whatever the reason, CO has decided to take the line to a more “standard” 3 ¾” scale, and I’ll concede that introduces some intriguing possibilities of The Doctor and company intermingling within my other collections. Of course, it also alienates all future releases from our existing Who collections, so whether it was worth the change remains to be seen. Today we’re checking out The Doctor!

The packaging, for all intents and purposes, is just a shrunken down version of the card and bubble that we got with the last waves of 5-inchers. The card is generic with a TARDIS illustration on the front and a circular bubble showing off the figure and the accompanying stand. The bubble insert has the figure’s name and the “DWARTIS” logo. Seeing as how that hasn’t been part of Series 7b, I wish they would have dropped it from the package design. The packaging isn’t a big deal to me, as I rip them open and toss them, but that having been said, the presentation here is just stale. Considering this is a brand new line and a brand new scale, I think CO would have been smart to rebrand them into something different and more exciting.

The back of the cards show the other figures in the line, as well as some of the cardboard playset-diorama things that are also available over in the UK right now.

When the scale change was announced, there was a lot of complaining among collectors about how that scale couldn’t possibly hold the same quality of sculpt as the old line. Soon, CO showed off a prototype of The Doctor and it assuaged a lot of people’s fears. Unfortunately, the final product is nowhere near what we saw in that original teaser figure. It’s overall pretty meh. The head sculpt is barely passable and the closer you get to it the worse it becomes. Some companies, particularly Hasbro, have had some amazing head sculpts in the 3 ¾” scale lately, and in that context this figure doesn’t fly. I doubt most could identify it as Matt Smith, but if I told someone who it was supposed to be, some might say, “oh yeah, I can kind of see the resemblance now.” There have been horror stories looming about the paint on the face. Googly eyes, mad eyes, and boss eyes have been in abundance. I’m happy to say the paint on my figure isn’t overly terrible, although there is some stray paint near his chin. Overall, the head sculpt here seems primitive.

As for the rest of the figure: You get The Doctor in his longer coat with vest, shirt, and bow tie. Bow ties are cool. The coat is sculpted in soft, rubbery plastic and hangs down below his waste and is securely glued to the torso. There’s very little sculpted detail to the coat, making it look smooth and rather unconvincing as an actual garment. The shirt and vest fare a little better. Ironically, I think the trousers and shoes look the best. The figure’s proportions are ok. Maybe his arms are a little long. His right hand is sculpted to hold his Sonic Screwdriver, which is provided.

Articulation on The Good Doctor is subpar when compared to the competition. His head can turn, his arms feature ball joints in the shoulders, hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the wrists. His legs have a standard T-crotch and he has hinges in the knees. He appears to have swivel cuts at the ankles, but mine don’t seem to want to turn and I’m not going to force them and risk twisting off his feet. You can get some poses out of him, but he’s still a rather stiff figure. Swivels in the biceps and ball joints in the hips would have helped a lot.

Besides the Sonic Screwdriver, The Doctor comes with a figure stand molded to look like the “DWARTIS” logo. Again, the DW thing isn’t being used anymore, so it feels kind of inappropriate here. On the other hand, the shape and style makes for a decent stand.It is, however, fairly large considering the size of the figure, and the peg is oddly placed, so if you have the logo facing you with the figure pegged on it, there’s a lot of wasted, empty space in front of the figure.

And there we go. Character Options’ new 3 ¾’ line is off to a dubious start. Frankly, based on initial reactions around the InterToobs, I was expecting worse, and indeed comparing The Doctor to some of Hasbro’s best efforts make him look laughable by comparison.  I can certainly tell this is a first foray into the scale on CO’s part because it clearly shows. On the plus side, The Doctor does scale quite well with other leading lines, so you can finally do those Doctor Who-GI JOE-Star Wars-Marvel Universe crossovers that you’ve always wanted to do. At $10 each, these he isn’t priced too badly for an import figure and I’ll be looking at the rest of the wave in the near future. I’m not at all sorry I bought him, and as we’ll see other figures in the wave fared much better.  I’ll be back tomorrow to look at Clara.