For a line that’s been canceled, Character Options’ 5-inch Doctor Who figures keep limping along thanks to a handful of special releases like the one I’m looking at today. CO seems to be empathizing enough with the fans to be releasing some of the staple characters for our 5-inch scale collections and in this case, they are delivering on filling that one big hole… Oswin “Clara” Oswald. Sure there are still a lot of 11th Doctor Era figures we’d like to see in this scale (Series 7 Cyberman, please!), but since the line went the 3 3/4” route during the 11th Doctor’s tenure, it seemed like Clara was that one character missing from an otherwise clean break. And that brings me to this “Impossible Set” which gives us The 11th Doctor from the story, “The Snowmen” and Oswin Oswald from Jenna Coleman’s first appearance in “Asylum of the Daleks”

Character Options put together a really nice bit of presentation for this set, making me think it might have been originally intended as a special SDCC release. It’s a double sided window box with a hexagonal cross-section. You get The Doctor on one side and Oswin on the other. Each side of the package is decked out to represent each respective story. The Doctor’s side has some Victorian shutters and one of the Great Intelligence’s evil snowmen. Toss in some nice shiny foil and damn it looks great!

The flipside, however, is even better as it’s made up to look like the head of a Dalek with the eyestalk forming the portal to view the figure through. The presentation here is obviously a spoiler as it was eventually revealed that Oswin had been converted into a Dalek a long time ago and her appearance throughout the episode was just a projection of herself within her own insane Dalek mind. So cool! Anyway, the box here is very creative and it may just get me to save the packaging on this set because it is so unique and striking. Let’s start things off by looking at The Doctor!

And here we have the 11th Doctor in all his sulky, brooding Victorian garb. It’s a fun figure, particularly since this was a one off look for him. There is some nice detail work on his vest, particularly the pocket watch and chain, which looks fabulous. Unfortunately, the rest of the figure doesn’t showcase some of CO’s best work. The coat and top hat both look a bit off to me. It’s like they’re made out of putty. I’d say it’s the soft plastic used for the coat, but the finish looks the same on the sleeves. I’m not sure what material that coat was supposed to be made out of, but it doesn’t look natural on the figure.

If the coat looks like it’s made out of putty, the hat looks like it’s made out of chocolate. I’m also a bit bummed that it’s not removable, but I can’t say as I didn’t expect it to be one piece with the head. The portrait here is passable, but it’s certainly not up to par with the previous Matt Smith likenesses in this scale. The paint on the face is a lot simpler and more cartoony looking too.

One nice surprise is that The Doctor actually features rotating hinges in the shoulders, a feature that has been hit and miss in the line. On the downside, most of the joints on my figure were stuck and while I didn’t have to bust out the blow dryer, I did have to do quite a bit of finessing. And even after the fact, some of the joints feel rather loose and wobbly, particularly those bicep swivels.

The Doctor comes with his trusty Sonic Screwdriver, which may sound like a given, but there have been more than a few sets where CO declined to toss one in.

And that brings us to what is for most the real star of this set… Oswin Oswald, or if you prefer, “Souffle Girl.” Now, I’m sure there are collectors out there who would have preferred a proper Clara. This version never actually met The Doctor until she was turned into a Dalek and it does seem odd that CO didn’t go all out for “The Snowmen” but I’m glad they went this route if for no reason other than that red dress kicked all sorts of ass. Plus, now that they got the portrait sculpted, I highly doubt this is the last we’ll see of Clara in the 5-inch scale. So, let’s go ahead and start with that portrait.

It’s garnered some criticisms early on, and I’ll concede it isn’t up there with some of CO’s finest work. It is, however, one of those sculpts that looks passable until you get up too close and then it starts to fall apart. The neck seems way too chunky and the sculpted hair defeats the neck articulation. Also, like The Doctor, the paintwork on the face here is rather simple and cartoony. Let’s be fair, Jenna Coleman is a shockingly attractive young lady and I think getting it perfect in this scale was never going to happen. We’ve certainly seen better, but at this point I’ll take what I can get.

The dress is soft plastic and layered onto the figure, which allows for a surpisingly functional waist swivel. I also like the work they did on her tool belt. All the little bits and bobs are nicely sculpted and painted and the belt itself just hangs loose around her waist. The paint and detail on Oswin’s sneakers are also well done.

Like The Doctor, Clara features the coveted rotating hinges in the shoulders. She is missing swivels in the waist, but the rest of the articulation is what we’re used to seeing in this line. She even has a surprisingly good amount of hip articulation, thanks to the rubbery material used for the dress.

Of course, they don’t call her “Souffle Girl” for nothing and Oswin does indeed come with her very own burnt souffle. Where does she get the eggs??? If this isn’t the first time an action figure came with a souffle as an accessory, I’d like to know what that first figure was. Maybe The Swedish Chef from Palisade’s Muppets line?

I nabbed The Impossible Set for $35 from my regular Who Merchandise Provider and tossed in some DVDs I was missing to help offset the shipping. It’s a damn good price for two niche figures, particularly considering that any 5-inch figures from this point on are special releases and I would have expected an accompanying price hike. I should be more disappointed that the overall production quality on these figures isn’t quite up to par, but the truth is that I’m just so happy that they were released I’m willing to be more forgiving. As a collector, that’s not a great position to be in, but it’s the truth nonetheless. I’m also happy to say that Character Options has another 5-inch scale set due to turn up soon. It’s based off the episode “Time of the Doctor” and it will give us our first look at the 12th Doctor in this scale!

The 5-inch line of Doctor Who figures isn’t exactly alive and kicking, but it is limping along and still sputtering out some offerings, most of which are repacks and minor tweaks of existing figures. In particular, Character Options re-released a number of figures from the Tennant Era in new packaging. A little while ago I featured this reissue of The Tenth Doctor in his blue suit and now we’re going to check out Mr. Fixed-Point-In-Time himself, Captain Jack Harkness.

I don’t have anything new to say about the packaging. We’ve seen this plenty of times before. I will, however, take this opportunity to point out how much I miss Jack’s appearances on the show. I could never get into Torchwood, but seeing Jack pop up on proper-Who was always a treat. I’ll be the first to admit that NuWho becomes way too parochial, and by that I mean that with all of space and time to explore, The Doctor keeps running into a lot of the same people, but I feel sad knowing that Jack never got to come back for at least one episode to meet Eleven. I think that would have been fun. Jack’s character can be a bit much sometimes, but I still think he was a great addition to the Whoniverse and John Barrowman seems like a really cool guy. But, getting back to the figure, the only Captain Jack I have in my collection was the original one from way back in 2006(?) and that one hasn’t aged all that well. That’s ironic if you think about it. Anyway, let’s check out this update.

This is definitely the more modern Captain Jack and I’m guessing he would pass for a Torchwood Jack as well. He has his long coat naval with those stylish epaulets, which is cast in soft rubber. CO even took the time to do a nice sculpt underneath, showing off his suspenders and his sculpted, non-functional (boo!) holster. All In all, Jack’s ensemble is well executed and followed up with some really tidy paintwork, right down to the individual buttons on his coat.

The portrait is decent enough, but I wouldn’t classify it as a homerun. It’s certainly better than the chunky noggin we got on the first Captain Jack figure. I definitely recognize the likeness, but the expression is rather blank. I guess that would actually be a lack of expression. His complexion also looks extra shiny. Still, I’m pretty happy with what we got.

The articulation on this guy holds no surprises. It’s a repack so don’t expect any ball joints in the shoulders. The arms only rotate at the shoulders, but they do feature hinged elbows and swivels in the wrists. The legs have universal movement at the hips, hinges in the knees, swivels in the thighs, and due to the sculpt of the pants cuffs, there isn’t any articulation in the ankles. He can swivel at the waist and his head rotates. Like I said… no surprises.

This Jack figure originally came with his trusty revolver and The Doctor’s hand in a jar. This time around you only get the trusty revolver. Cheap! J’accuse, Character Options! First no sonic screwdriver included with the Tenth Doctor repack and now no hand jar. That pisses me off! The pistol is a decent enough accessory and he can hold it pretty well in his right hand. You can even almost get his trigger finger through the trigger guard.

That’s pretty much all I have to say about Captain Jack here. He’s a decent enough figure and I’m glad to get the opportunity to pick him up since I missed out on him last time. Now I can put my original Jack figure on my Ninth Doctor shelf and put this version with my Tenth Doctor figures. I paid about $15 for this figure, which is admittedly steep, especially when CO starts cutting accessories out, but my budget isn’t exactly getting blown on Doctor Who figures these days, so I was willing to splurge.

Guess what, folks? I’ve got 5-inch Doctor Who figures to look at! Yes, some of the newly released Dalek-Doctor two-packs have been landing on my doorstep and I’m very excited about it. But we won’t be looking at those today because I still have one more 3 ¾” figure to look at before slamming a lid on this most recent wave. It’s the Zygon because there were motherf’cking Zygons in the 50^th Anniversary Special! Sure, they were almost totally superfluous to much of the plot but it was still good to see Zygons in NuWho and now we have figures!

I’ve said my piece about the packaging. It’s totally serviceable for a 3 ¾” figure line but certainly nothing special. It just begs to be ripped open and thrown away. The Zygon comes carded beside his grey “DWARTIS” figure stand. Yes, grey! Why did you change these to grey, Character Options? What was wrong with blue?

The Zygons in the 50^th didn’t change much from their last appearance way back in 1975 and that’s fine with me. I always thought they were one of the best looking monsters from the Classic series and despite having been absent from the small screen for almost 40 years, they still tend to get lumped in with the recurring aliens. They must have really good agents. And that’s one of the cool things about these figures is that they can easily pass for classic Zygons. If only we had some classic Doctors in this scale to display with them.

The sculpting here is quite good for the scale in general and exceptionally good for this line in particular. Well, to be fair, most of the aliens in this scale have been decent and the Zygon figure continues that trend. The head sculpt is very evocative of the way they looked in the 50^th and the skin is appropriately laced with all sorts of ridges and suckers. Since the Zygon is technically nekkid, the paint is uniform over the whole figure. Nonetheless CO really nailed the grubby orange color of the Zygon’s skin.

Articulation here is pretty close to what we got with the Ice Warriors and Cybermen in this scale. You get ball joints in the shoulders and hips, there are hinges in the elbows and knees, and there are swivels in the wrists. The ankles do have hinges, but they don’t really offer any movment. There’s no torso articulation and because the Zygon’s head is basically just a continuation of his torso, there’s no neck articulation either. Nonetheless, what’s here is pretty good and any limitations are more likely due to the design of the creature than shortcuts in the figure.

The Zygon is definitely my favorite figure in this wave and that’s saying something because he was up against a couple of those excellent Dalek variants. Some of my love for this figure has to do with the fact that I’ve always liked the look of this particular alien menace, but also because CO did a genuinely fine job with him and he looks great on the shelf alongside the rest of the 3 ¾” menagerie of aliens. I picked up three of these guys and who knows if I’ll stop there. Yes, as Tom Baker would say, “Who Knows?”

And… that’ll wrap up my look at this wave for now. It’s likely I’ll eventually double back and pick up the tweed jacket 11^th Doctor just because there’s plenty of him around and these figures are pretty cheap. But for now, I can finally start digging into some of the new 5-inch Who figures that are on my receivings pile. I think I’ll start with a couple of the Dalek and Doctor two-packs and then maybe we’ll circle back to that Claws of Axos set that’s been sitting around here for what seems like forever.

The Day of the Doctor was a HUGE deal for me. Not only did it celebrate the 50^th Anniversary of a show that I’ve been watching since I was about 12, but I also got to see it in a packed theater surrounded by kindred fans. It was a magical experience and one that I never in a million years could have guessed would come to pass back when I was just a wee lad crouched in my room in front of my shitty wood grain B&W television and fidgeting with a rabbit ear antenna. DotD also showcased the show’s ridiculous resiliency. Want to gather the last three Doctors but Christopher Eccleston is being a turd about it? Not a problem. We just upgrade to the brilliant John Hurt and fill in the blanks in a way we never would have guessed but still worked perfectly. I expected it to be a celebration of Tennant and Smith, but who could have guessed that Hurt would step into the role like he had been part of it all along? Of course like all good geeks, once the excitement of the thing had passed and once I’d watched it a dozen times, I lamented the fact that there would never be a War Doctor to stand among my 5-inch figures. Thankfully, Character Options did the right thing and brought the NuWho 5-inch line out of retirement to give us collectors what we wanted.

The package is unlike anything we’ve seen for the 5-inch line, although the oblong plastic tube does bear a slight resemblance to the packages used for the Sarah Jane Adventures figures. It’s clear all around with a printed insert that reflects the show’s logo in beautiful foil lettering with a silver “50 Year” TARDIS emblem to boot. The package shows off the figure and accessories and the inner tray is set upon an illustrated backdrop of The Moment, the last of the forbidden weapons locked away in the Arsenal of Omega. Up until this story, I always assumed it was the Eighth Doctor who fought the Time War, but now we know different. My only gripe about the packaging is a small one. It identifies the figure as the “Other Doctor” while I vastly prefer the moniker of “War Doctor.” Still, maybe it’s a clever nod to the redemption the Hurt Doctor receives by the end of the story.  Let’s take a look at the figure.

After suffering through a couple waves of the pretty shitty 3 ¾” figures, seeing CO work their magic in the 5-inch scale again is like a breath of fresh air. The War Doctor is absolutely stunning in every detail and it makes me weep even harder for the death of this line. Of course it doesn’t hurt that I love this character design so much. The Doctor dons his battle-worn coat, bandolier strap, scarf, and knee-high spats. He looks rugged and war-torn, threadbare and hardened. The coat is the usual soft plastic “vest” laid onto the figure with the arms sculpted as sleeves and it looks magnificent, largely thanks to the dry brushing that gives it that weathered look. Beneath it you can see the painted chain of his pocket watch and the silver plating of his bandolier. They even bothered to paint and sculpt the haphazard buttoning down the sides of his spats. Brilliant!

More often than not CO succeeds with their portraits, and this Doctor is no exception. Hurt’s grizzled likeness is wonderfully recreated here with a solemn look as if he’s about to scold his future selves about their idiotic brandishing of their sonic screwdrivers. I think this portrait is among their best work. Even his eccentric peaked hairstyle looks perfect.

It’s somewhat ironic that while having been the oldest person to play the role, Hurt’s figure is among the most articulated of all the Doctor figures we’ve seen so far. The arms feature the elusive ball joints that have only appeared on a handful of the 5-inch Doctors. There are swivels in the biceps, hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the wrists. The legs are hinged at the hips to allow for lateral movement, have hinged knees, and swivels at the boot tops. The Doctor can swivel at the waist and at the neck.

The Doctor comes with two accessories. First, you get the sonic screwdriver, which should be obvious, but considering the last 10^th Doctor figure I bought didn’t have one, I suppose it’s a welcome treat. It’s not much to get excited about, but it does appear to be a new sculpt and he can hold it in either hand.

But best of all, you get The Moment, which looks like a Gallifreyan Hellraiser cube. I loved the design of this thing in the show and CO did a fine job recreating it here. Sure, it’s just a plastic box, but there’s plenty of detail and paintwork including gears and Gallifreyan writing. It’s a beautiful little piece of clockwork engineering and the next best thing to getting a Billie Piper Moment figure bundled in.

And then there’s the inexplicable inclusion of the extra Paul McGann head. Swapping heads to make regeneration figures has been an old trick for CO, but this one just makes no sense. When McGann regenerated in Night of the Doctor the only common piece of his outfit was the bandolier strap he took off Cass’ body. So putting a McGann head on this figure doesn’t work as a regeneration figure. What’s more, when Sylvester McCoy regenerated into McGann he was wasn’t wearing anything so you can’t even pop the head onto a McCoy figure with any degree of reason. Why’s it here? I don’t know, but it doesn’t hurt the figure, so who cares!

I was hoping CO would surprise us with something for the 50^th Anniversary and in the end they did. In fairness I was banking on a Classic TARDIS Console Playset and obviously that didn’t pan out. The War Doctor isn’t nearly as grandiose, but he’s a welcome treat all the same. Of course, with the NuWho 5-inch line still dead, he’s also a bit of a tease. Does this mean that we can hope to see CO make some special exceptions in the future? Does it mean we can hope for a 5-inch Capaldi Doctor? Well, if anything this release shows us that anything is possible. And that’s appropriate, because in Doctor Who anything is indeed possible!

For those of you wondering, I do still have the Classic Who “Claws of Axos” boxed set waiting to be featured, but it’s going to be the last Classic set for a while and so I’m holding off on opening it until the time feels right. Nonetheless, I felt like doing a Doctor Who feature today, so I’m digging into one of the other unopened figures on my pile. Late last year, Character Options began repackaging and reissuing some of their more popular figures and one of those included this version of the 10^th Doctor that had so far managed to elude my grasp.

The figure comes in a sealed blister pack with a deco quite similar to what we’ve been seeing on all the most recent releases. The only difference here is the embossed Doctor Who logo has the pattern from the original credit sequence printed on the insert and it looks so cool! I don’t have anything else new to report about the rest of the presentation, other than it’s my favorite packaging for the line to date. I have several 10^th Doctor figures in my collection, but they’re all the same figure. It’s the long coated version sans glasses that was originally released single-carded. I have another one of those still carded because a well-meaning friend gifted it to me. Finally, I have a third example of that same figure, which came boxed with the remote control rusty K9. After amassing three of the same version of Number Ten, it seemed like I was long overdue to add another version to my Who Shelves.

Once I availed myself of a sharp blade to open the package, I was treated to a nice whiff of plastic fumes and The Good Doctor was free of his prison. While the package may be new, the figure is still a repack and also shares a lot of tooling with the trench coat wearing version that’s already on my shelf. The basic body is the same only repainted blue and with newly sculpted sleeves to represent the coat’s sleeves. The suit jacket is layered onto the figure and it looks good, even if it does add a little extra bulk to the “proper skinny” Tennant’s body. The new paintjob is quite good, right down to the bright red used for his “sandshoes.”

The portrait is solid enough, but it’s certainly not one of the line’s best. I can see Tennant in there and while I won’t say it’s better than the other one, it is a bit closer to the look that Ten adopted as being more iconic by the end of his reign. The hair does it’s best to approximate the “all sticky uppy” (as the wonderful Wilf would have said) style, although it kind of just looks like a lump of plastic. The glasses, on the other hand, are pretty well done. While they aren’t removable, they are a separately sculpted appliance and it can’t be easy to do that in this scale and make it look this good.

CO’s Doctor Who line has never been known for being super-articulated, but going back to an early figure like this one certainly reminds me of just how many improvements have been made on that front over the years. While only a select few recent figures have earned the breakthrough of ball jointed arms, this figure is still missing the swivel cuts that eventually appeared in most of the figures’ biceps and thighs and they are pretty conspicuous in their absence. What you do get are rotating shoulders, rotating head, hinges in the elbows and knees, and hips that at least allow for forward and lateral movement in the legs. Honestly, there’s just not a lot you can do with him in terms of action posing.

The most irritating thing about this figure is the omission of the Sonic Screwdriver. It’s such a tiny little accessory and one that has already been sculpted, so not throwing it into the package feels like a blatant slap in the face to us collectors. I actually found myself giving the tray a careful once over just because I couldn’t believe that it wasn’t hiding in there somewhere. It’s doubly disappointing since The Doctor’s right hand is sculpted to hold it.

At $15 for this repacked figure with no accessory, it certainly feels like I’m back to paying a premium. That seemed fair enough back in the early days when the success of Doctor Who’s return was still a bit uncertain and the action figure line was untested. Now that NuWho has blazed through eight years like gangbusters and has supported a wide range of toys and action figures, one would think that we could have gotten a bit of a price break by now. Nonetheless, I’m very happy for another chance at this figure, and I’ll go ahead and admit that he will be replacing my other 10^th Doctor on my main shelf right between Nine and Eleven. Or is that Nine and Twelve now? Whatever the case, this is a great addition to my collection, even if it does feel rather dated. I did pick up one more figure from this repack wave and that was Captain Jack Harkness to replace the rather mediocre first release of the character. I’ll try to get around to opening him next week.