To know me is to know I adore Doctor Who, and I miss the days when Character Options was pumping out an extensive line of action figures from both Classic and NuWho. It’s so bizarre that they still hold the license and yet only toss out a figure or two a year these days. My guess is that they over-extended themselves when they were pumping out figures of almost every character to appear in each current series. There’s got to be a landfill of Grandma Connollys somewhere in England. In any event, I have no doubt they’ll get around to producing the Thirteenth Doctor for their 5-inch line, but in the meantime, they managed to get this “Adventure Doll” out before the premier of the new Series with The Doctor’s latest incarnation.

And here she is in her very non-collector friendly packaging. Thirteen comes in a large plastic bubble with a cardboard backing. The insert includes a TARDIS motif on one side as well as a shot of the TARDIS and the new series logo on the bottom. It’s an attractive presentation, very bright and colorful, but as I said, not intended for collectors. I’d almost feel bad about opening it, but mine got crunched a little on the top corner during its’ trip from Merry Old England, so I won’t feel too bad about razoring it open.

The back panel has a little blurb, but no real insight into what this new Doctor will be like. I’ll admit, I was not overjoyed with the casting here. When I heard the new Doctor was going to be played by an actress from Broadchurch, I had convinced myself it was going to be Olivia Colman and I was thrilled and excited. And then I saw the teaser with Jodie Whitaker and it was like a bucket of cold water was thrown on my enthusiasm. It’s not that I dislike Whitaker, but I think while making the bold move of casting a woman, the BBC still played it safe by going with a traditionally pretty blonde. I just think Colman would have been absolutely perfect as The Doctor. She’s a can be quirky and I think she’s got good range as an actress. Plus, she’s already had a cameo in Doctor Who, which would have put her in good company with previous Doctors like Colin Baker and Peter Capaldi. With all that having been said, there hasn’t been a Doctor yet that I haven’t eventually warmed up to, so I’m still willing to be open minded and optimistic. What’s that? Oh yeah, back to the review…

Here’s The Doctor freed from her package and I have to say for what this is I’m quite pleased with it. The term “Adventure Doll” really characterizes the feel of this figure, as it’s definitely not aimed at collectors, but I could see children running around and clutching this figure by the arm and going on all sorts of adventures.  She measures in at about 10-inches, which is something of an oddball scale. Character Options released a number of similar clothed figures for NuWho in the past, but they were proper Sixth-Scale, so Thirteen isn’t really going to fit in with many of those figures, although as we’ll see in a bit, she sort of works with some of the aliens. The outfit is done entirely in soft goods and includes a pair of bright blue pants, which are cuffed just below her knees, a black T-shirt with a rainbow pattern across the chest, and a long gray coat with a hood and rainbow stripes running up the front flaps. Her boots are plastic with sculpted blue socks showing.

The tailoring on the outfit is pretty solid and the ensemble fits the figure quite well. There are some concessions, like the pockets on the coat are just stitched on and not functional, however, the hood on the jacket can be worn up. Removing the jacket reveals white sleeves on her T-shirt and a pair of thin gold suspenders. Overall, I like the design here and it feels a lot more like a trademark look, which is something I missed during The Eleventh Doctor’s tenure. It hints at some of The Doctor’s more colorful wardrobes without going full on crazy Technocolor Dreamcoat like The Sixth Doctor did. Still, I can’t help but feel this design was inspired a little too much from Mork from Orc and I just can’t unsee it.

The portrait isn’t bad for a figure in this price range. I can certainly see a likeness to Whitaker in there. The paint is very basic, but it’s clean, particularly on the eyes and lips. They even included her interesting earring, which is the first I’m noticing it. Her hair is sculpted to cover part of her face, which looks good. If I had one complaint it would be the heavy handed paint on her roots. It’s not terrible, but it’s not great either.

The articulation here is surprisingly good. I will say that the integrity of the joints vary. The leg joints can be a bit loose and sometimes makes it hard to get her to stand, although I didn’t have to use a stand for any of the poses I shot, so it can be done. The arms feel OK, but the neck is curiously tight. When I first tried to turn her head, I was afraid I was going to snap it off. Even now, it still requires a fair amount of effort to get her head to turn.

In addition to her outfit, The Doctor comes with one accessory and that’s her new Sonic Screwdriver. It’s a very simple piece with a nice coat of silver paint. I’ll toss in here that I’m not at all a fan of this design. It does look more alien, but it’s looking less and less like an actual screwdriver with each new design. I always liked the idea that The Doctor just pulled his favorite accessory out of the TARDIS Toolkit one day and modified it to make it more useful. But throughout the course of NuWho it’s becoming more and more like a Magic-Wand-Slash-Tricorder and that’s never sat well with me. But that’s an old rant of mine, and not something to detract from this figure.

Finally, here’s a quick comparison of The Doctor with some of the aliens from CO’s 12-inch line, and I think in this case these figures work OK. I know the Cybus Cyberman aren’t really THAT tall, but I still wouldn’t have any trouble displaying Thirteen with either of these figures.

I found this figure on Amazon from a UK Seller for around $35 and jumped on it, despite the fact that I’m usually put off from ordering Internationally. Nevertheless, I’m glad I did, because it quickly went out of stock and I haven’t seen it offered anywhere else. Granted I paid something of a premium, as I would imagine this figure to sell somewhere around $25 if I found it on the shelf at a US Retailer, but as popular as Doctor Who has become here, I still don’t think the distribution on this one will be too extensive. Either way, I think she’s a fun figure and the moniker Adventure Doll fits her perfectly. Sure, I wish CO had produced her in a proper Sixth-Scale, but maybe they’ll release some other figures in this line to go with her. Eh… probably not.

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.

It’s become part of my Doctor Who viewing routine to watch the new episodes and lament over how almost every single character would have gotten an action figure back in the heyday of Character Options’ 5-inch line. Oh, the missed opportunities over the last couple of Series. Now, we’re lucky to get a handful of figures a year. And I do mean lucky, because I’m sincerely grateful for every single release these days. That goes double for today’s because it’s the version of The 8th Doctor from the six-and-a-half minute short, “Night of the Doctor!” 

If you picked up either version of The 12th Doctor figures last year, you’ll know just what to expect from the packaging. The figure comes in a window box very much in line with what a lot of the big toy companies are doing with their 6-inch figure lines. The deco is a sumptuous blend of old and new, the window shows off the figure beautifully, and everything is totally collector friendly. Needless to say, I like it!

The back of the box gives you a little blurb about the great Paul McGann as The 8th Doctor and the short “minisode” that the figure is based on. When it comes to that 1996 Fox TV movie, my motto has always been “hate the movie, love The Doctor!” That’s probably why I dig this short so much. It not only gave us a precious few more minutes of McGann on screen as The Doctor, but this time it was brilliant and it finally gave him a proper (and superb!) regeneration scene as well as legitimized his Big Finish Audio Adventures by having him rattle off the names of his companions. Lovely.

It’s no secret that I’ve been disappointed with the QC in the last few figures in this line. I’m happy to say that this figure shows improvements on a massive scale. The paint is near perfect and there are no loose, pulled, or wobbly joints. Naturally, I had to get him online, so when I was ready to cringe when I pulled the package from the shipping box. Needless to say, I was pleasntly surprised with what I got! I absolutely adore this costume. It’s like a blend of Edwardian gentlemen meets steampunk high plains drifter and the sculpt and paint used to bring it to life are both implemented beautifully. There’s all sorts of detail in the vest, including the unbuttoned bottom button and the chain to his fob watch running off to the side and disappearing under the coat. The coat is the usual vest faked out with sculpted arm sleeves and it works brilliantly here. The boots include individually sculpted laces and the open shirt collar with cravat looks great. The paint used to make the worn leather finish on the boots loos particularly nice.

The portrait is fine, but under close scrutiny it looks rather soft. It’s a decent likeness and certainly sets itself apart from the McGann portraits Character Options has delivered in the past.

With fewer figures being produced each year, you’d think that CO would have cut back on the articulation, but this Doctor is probably the best articulated figure this line has ever seen. The arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders, hinged elbows, and swivels in the biceps and wrists. The legs feature a t-crotch in the hips with added lateral hinges. The knees are hinged and there are swivels in both the thighs and the tops of the boots. There’s a swivel at the waist and again at the neck.

The Doctor comes with three accessories. First, you get the bandoleer strap that he took from Cass, the woman he failed to save. It’s a very key accessory, as the woman died refusing to trust The Doctor because of his connection to the Time Lords. Her death was in effect the last straw that led to him finally agreeing to take up arms and fight to end it. The strap is removable and very similar to the one seen sculpted under the jacket of The War Doctor.

Next up you get the Sonic Screwdriver, which is a wonderful little piece because it matches the design of the ones carried by the classic Doctors.

Finally, you get the chalice that was given to The Doctor by the Sisterhood of Karn, containing the Elyxyr of Life, which allowed him to undergo a customized regeneration. It also figured in that wonderful little sequence where he canonizes his Audio Adventure companions before drinking: “Charley, C’rizz, Lucie, Tamsin, Molly, friends, companions I’ve known, I salute you. And Cass, I apologise…. Physician, heal thyself.” Freaking brilliant.

At this point every 5-inch scale Doctor Who figure I can add to my shelf is a rare treat. This one, especially so because a) It’s a version of The Doctor that I badly wanted and b) the craftsmanship on display here is exceptional. He’s definitely going to replace my current 8th Doctor on my Shelf of Doctors. Seeing that CO is still capable of producing a figure this nice makes me just want more. Fortunately, I do happen to have another new one to check out next week: It’s Missy! Well, she couldn’t go around calling herself The Master, could she?

It seems that Character Options can’t quite pull the plug on their 5-inch Scale Doctor Who line. It’s all but been declared dead and yet a handful of figures still drip out each year, keeping the line on life support. And thank Rassilon for that, because otherwise I would have a giant twelve-shaped hole in my Doctors line up. It took all of Series 8 to get here, but today I’m checking out Peter Capaldi as the 12th Doctor.

We’ve got some entirely new packaging here that shows CO taking a page from some of the 6-inch Scale figure lines out there. The window box reminds me a lot of the Star Wars Black and Funko Legacy style. The deco is brand new too and I really love it. You get the 70-ish style logo on the front and some very nice coloring, along with some of the clockwork gears behind the tray in keeping with the Series 8/9 introduction. The window shows off the figure brilliantly, although there’s a lot of extra room in there, and the side panel is designed to identify the figure. The fact that CO has re-designed the package makes me hope that they may be planning to churn out more than a few new figures in this scale, but that may just be false hopes on my part.

Out of the box, The Doctor looks pretty sharp, although this isn’t exactly one of the more exciting outfits the Time Lord has worn. I would have preferred one of his more ruffly, Jon Pertwee-esque looks, but at least he’s not wearing that hoodie. No, the outfit here is a simple open jacket, trousers, and white collared shirt. Probably the biggest stand out thing about the outfit is the nice black gloss sheen on his shoes and grey border around the soles. It’s also a nice touch that they bothered to sculpt and paint Capaldi’s ring. The paint quality on CO’s recent releases hasn’t been the best and that’s exhibited here by some flubbed paint on the white shirt as well as a stroke of gray paint. There are also a few scratches to the skin tone on his face. Nothing terrible, but we’ve seen better.

The likeness here is fair, but I don’t like it as much as the one included with The Time of the Doctor set. That could just be personal preference, though. I just thought that other head had more personality. He also looks rather sleepy. Capaldi has some super intense peepers and I don’t think those are properly reflected here. Again, not terrible, but CO has always been pretty good with the portraits and we’ve seen better likenesses on past Doctors.

Articulation is on par with other recent releases in this line. The shoulders have rotating hinges, while the arms have hinged elbows, and swivels in the biceps and wrists. The legs have a T-crotch at the hips, which does allow for lateral movement. The knees are hinged, and there are swivels in the thighs and ankles. I like the design of the shoulders and hips on these figures. You can’t really tell they have the lateral movement until you have the figure in hand.

The Doctor comes with one accessory and as you probably guessed it is indeed his Sonic Screwdriver. It’s the same design as the 11th Doctor’s and possibly a repacked accessory, although it seems a bit bigger than the Sonics I’ve had with some of Eleven’s figures. At least he didn’t come with the Sonic Sunglasses. Ugh. I’m all for the Sonic Screwdriver taking a hiatus, especially since NuWho has turned it into a tricorder, rather than just a little piece of kit that can open locks and interfere with electronic devices, but Sonic Wayfarers are a step down. Besides, the 5th and 6th Doctors did just fine without their Screwdriver.

Just looking at this figure, anyone would think I was crazy to be as excited to own it as I am, but I’ve made no bones about my love for Capaldi and not having his Doctor on my shelf in this scale would have been devastating. I’ve enjoyed Series 8 and been enjoying Series 9, but most of that is on Capaldi’s performance because I don’t think the writing has been living up to past Series. I love him as an actor, I love his passion for the show, and I love his take on the rebel Time Lord. And yeah, I love Character Options for struggling to keep this line going, especially since they revealed figures of Missy and a new Eighth Doctor, both due out before the end of the year.

There’s just one more dose of Doctor Who coming on Christmas before we enter the long, dark wait for Series 9, so I thought I’d help tide myself over by opening some Doctor Who figures today. Sadly, these are not the proper 5-inch scale but the new(er)(ish) 3 3/4” line, which have generally been not so good, unless you happen to be a Dalek or a Cyberman, or maybe a Zygon. These have been turning up at Walgreens, of all places, here in the States, but so far I’ve only found a single, lonely Dalek at any Walgreens so the two I’m looking at today came from an online retailer. I really have no idea what to expect from this line anymore, so let’s take a look at The Doctor and Amy Pond…

Wave 3 introduced this new packaging, which we’ve seen before and I still rather like it quite a bit. It’s not as conventional as the old style, but it’s quirky and colorful and I think it has a funky design that matches the show’s kitchy nature. It’s not collector friendly, not even if you have a sonic screwdriver, so you just gotta tear them open.

Kicking things off with The Doctor, this is how he appeared in Series 6 when he started donning his long green coat. Honestly, when I ordered the figure, I thought I was getting the Series 5 tweed jacket version, but I must have messed up when ordering. As a result, it’s sadly just a repaint of the Series 7 version I already have. I can’t say as I’m enough of a fan of these figures to be a completist and so I really didn’t need a second figure with a recolored jacket in my collection, and yet here he is. I’ll have to try again to get the one I was looking for.

Everything about this figure screams mediocre, and I think that’s even with me being a bit generous. The sculpt is passable considering the scale. These are considered 3 3/4” but they actually feel a little under-sized for that scale. I can recognize who it’s supposed to be and I think the portrait here is slightly better than my Series 7 version, but that probably has more to do with the paint than anything else. There are a few additional paint apps on the jacket to try to make it look different from the previous release, but it really just looks cheap. Everything about this guy feels like a quick and dirty re-paint cash-grab.

The articulation is pretty middle of the road. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, hinged elbows, and swivels in the wrists. The legs feature a T-crotch at the hips, hinged knees, and swivels at the boots. There’s no articulation in the torso, but the head can rotate. The Doctor does come with his tiny sonic screwdriver and a red “DWARTIS” style figure stand. I liked these stands when they were blue, but then they went to grey, and now they’re red. The coloring makes no sense and even the use of the now defunct logo as a stand feels like a mismatch.

Moving on to Amy, and things only get worse. The sculpt is fairly solid for a figure of this size. I’m not saying it’s great, but like The Doctor, it’s a passable likeness and certainly far better than the Clara Oswin sculpt that they’ve churned out at least two times in this scale. Unfortunately, it’s all downhill from there. My Amy’s left arm is dangling from the swivel cut in the bicep and the hinge in the elbow below it is painted shut. I’m not even going to bother trying to free it because I’ll probably wind up pulling the arm off. As a result the only useful articulation here are the rotating hinges in the shoulders, the hinges in the knees, and the rotating head. There appear to be swivels at the boots, but they aren’t budging. Amy comes with the same red figure stand as The Doctor. I have plenty of good Amy Pond figures in the 5-inch scale, which begs the question, “Why did I even buy this?”

I’ve been teetering on this line for a while now, but I think this pair may have been the final straw. I want to support Doctor Who toys, I really do, but it’s really hard when they suck this badly. After giving us so many years of great 5-inch scale figures, Character Options really needs to rethink this strategy with the smaller figures, either by making them a whole lot better or just giving up and letting someone else take a crack at the license. This Doctor figure is at best a mediocre repaint and the Amy figure is just plain garbage with really poor QC. If it weren’t for the fact that these only set me back ten bucks a piece, I probably would have been a log angrier. Anyway, I have one more of these figures to open, The 10th Doctor, and if that one doesn’t really wow me then I’m probably going to call quits on this line. Stay tuned for that one some time next week.

Series 8 of Doctor Who is over and that makes me a very sad Whovian. However, it’s November 12th and what better day could there be to look at an action figure set that includes both the 11th and the 12th Doctors? Eh? 11-12? Get it? Anyway… besides commemorating the episode “Time of the Doctor” in which Matt Smith handed the torch off to Peter Capaldi, this set also proves that Character Options can’t seem to let the 5-inch scale action figure line completely die out. And that’s alright by me! There have been lots of “Regeneration” figures in this line, depicting a new Doctor in the previous Doctor’s costume, but this is the first time CO has put out a figure that can be changed. And no, I don’t count The War Doctor with Paul McGann’s head because that one didn’t even make sense. Ah, but the fun doesn’t end there, because with a third head offers a figure of the really old 11th Doctor who aged while guarding Tranzelore. Let’s take a look at this curious set!

A unique set deserves unique packaging and CO certainly delivered here. The figure comes in a window box with two front flaps illustrated to look like the TARDIS. They are hinged at each end and held down by velcro. I was expecting just a regular blister pack or a tube or something, but certainly not this. The presentation is great and the whole thing is totally collector friendly so no matter which way you choose to display the figure, you’ll have a place to keep the extra parts.

So, speaking of extra parts, here they all are and here’s how it works. The heads are simple swaps, but the real kicker is the ability to change the front of the torso to reflect the bowtie-wearng 11th Doctor (bowties are cool!) or the no-bowtie, newly regenerated 12th Doctor (with eyebrows like these, who needs a bowtie!). These fake shirts are made of soft plastic and tab into the figure’s torso and tuck under the jacket for a pretty cool switcheroo! It’s very similar to the way they did the removable shirt on the Professor Bracewell figure. The figure is packaged as straight up 11th Doctor, so let’s start there…

We’ve certainly had no shortage of 11th Doctor figures, but I think many fans will agree that this is a most welcome version. I’d also say that even with the potential complications of the chest-swap gimmick, it’s one of the better executed ones and certainly far superior to the one that came in the last set with Clara. The sculpting and paint on the vest piece is really good, especially the now iconic bowtie and the chain for the fob watch. The same goes for the shoes. In every way it feels like this is CO trying to make up for the lackadaisical effort that we got for the 11th Doctor figure from “The Snowmen.” And it is most appreciated!

Articulation is right on par with what we’re used to seeing in the recent 5-inch scale releases. That means the head rotates, the arms feature swivels in the biceps and wrists as well as hinges in the elbows. The legs have universal movement in the hips, swivels in the thighs, and hinged knees. But, wait… what’s this? Rotating hinges in the shoulders! Happy day!

The second version is the aged 11th Doctor after he has spent centuries protecting the town of Christmas. This look is achieved with a mere head swap and while I can’t say I was really clamoring for this figure, it’s certainly nice to have options, especially when it consists of merely including an extra head in the package and you can take it or leave it. CO did an exceptionally nice job on this sculpt, even making the glasses work as a separate piece attached to the head. And aged 11th Doctor even has his cane so he can twirl it at the Daleks in defiance while shouting, “this one’s going to be a whopper!”

Lastly, you get the swap out chest and head to make the newly regenerated 12th Doctor. The vest is identical save for the omission of the bow tie, which the 11th Doctor dramatically pulled off before regenerating. The Capaldi likeness isn’t bad, although with one eye arched upward, the expression is pretty specific. I thin they were going for that crazed look he gave Clara when asking her if she knew how to fly the TARDIS.

Ah, but we’re not done yet. The set also includes the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver and… HANDLES! Yes, we finally have a 5-inch Handles accessory. It’s a beautifully detailed sculpt of the poor wrecked Cyberman head. Is this the closest we’re ever going to get to a 5-inch Series 7 and 8 upgraded Cybermen? Possibly.

After being underwhelmed with the last 11th Doctor and Clara set, I have to say that I am both pleasantly surprised and impressed by the way this one came out. I feared that CO might have been phoning in the 5-inch scale releases now, but the quality and execution of this set certainly suggests that the last one was an exception rather than the new rule. I’ll refer back to the Capaldi portrait as my only real nit-pick and even that’s just a matter of personal taste and I’d still gladly by a 12th Doctor figure in his regular outfit even if it simply recycles the same portrait.