If you’re a fan of Doctor Who than you have probably already heard that show-runner Steven Moffet is retiring from Who after Series 10 (which won’t come until 2017, BTW). Moffet has most certainly been a polarizing element in the fandom. As for me? Well, there’s been stuff about his era that I loved, and stuff that I maybe didn’t like so much, but in the end I admire him far more than I admonish him. Believe me, I could go on for hours on the subject. Of course, one of the biggest bombs he dropped on the Whoniverse was back in Series 8 when The Doctor’s oldest enemy, The Master, turned up as a woman named Missy. The idea was instantly decisive on the speculation as to whether or not Time Lords could regenerate into either gender. And thanks to the wonderful (dare I say masterful performance of) Michelle Gomez, it worked brilliantly. It worked so brilliantly that Missy was one of those characters that Character Options couldn’t deny giving us in the old 5-inch scale.

And here she is! I’m not sure what’s going on with the world of Doctor Who figures these days. Is CO even still producing that horrid 3 3/4-inch scale? They seem to be. And yet they also seem to understand that this 5-inch scale is what we really want and they keep going back to it for these scattershot releases. Anywho, Missy comes in the same style window box that we saw a few weeks back with The 8th Doctor from “Night of the Doctor.” You get a nice blurb on the back that recounts a little bit about The Master both before and after her gender-swap. It’s a handsome package and totally collector friendly.

Missy comes donning her prim-and-proper purple dress and looking absolutely smashing. CO continues to up their QC game in these newest batch of figures and I see no paint flubs or pulled joints or any of that nasty business. In fact, I’ve got no complaints here at all! Granted, the dress is pretty simple, but still nicely done and even the little cameo on her collar is an impressive little piece of work. If you’re feeling a little naughty and fancy a look up her dress, you’ll see that her high boots are sculpted all the way up to her knees, complete with laces.

The portrait is quite good as well. It’s a bit soft when you get in close, but still decent. It does a great job conveying Gomez’s rather stern brand of beauty. She wears her hat cocked to the front and side and the paint here is sharp and clean.

Alas, due to the nature of the outfit, Missy doesn’t come sporting a lot of articulation. The arms do feature rotating hinges in the shoulders, which is nice, but I’m not a big fan of the exposed hinge on the outside of the shoulder. She has swivel cuts in the biceps and wrists, and I believe this is the first time a figure in this line has had rotating hinges in the elbows. There’s a waist swivel under that coat and while there’s definitely leg articulation, the tee-pee effect of the dress renders it not very useful. The neck is ball jointed and supposedly the head can be swapped with the other version (black dress) of Missy should you be lucky enough to own her.

Missy comes with a pair of accessories. You get her little steam-punk phone thingy, which she can hold in her left hand (“Say something nice!”) and you get her umbrella, which can be held in her right hand.

Character Options seems to understand which characters are important enough to deliver in the nearly defunct 5-inch scale and so we continue to get dribbles of these releases each year. Indeed, Missy was actually released simultaneously in two versions: The one we just looked at today and one in a black dress and sans hat with a different head sculpt. Sadly, the other version is currently exclusive to CO’s UK website and has yet to see distribution outside a limited run in Great Britain. The version I have is a fine figure, but I would have preferred the other, or would have happily bought both. It’s also a pity that we don’t have any Moffet-era Cybermen to go with her.