Doctor Who: A Collector's Guide To The 5.5 Character Options Action Figure Range

Character Options

A series easily known worldwide, it has become a television institution like no other. Created by Sydney Newman, Verity Lambert, Donald Wilson, and CE "Bunny" Webber, their series of a "Thing that looks like a police box, stuck in a junkyard, can move anywhere in time and space", has generated a universal following that remains unlike any other form of cult entertainment. The series originally centred around two school teachers who are whisked away in a time machine that can travel anywhere in the fourth and fifth dimension. That ship was the TARDIS, an acronym for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space), and belonged to an enigmatic, cranky yet brilliant scientist.

The Character Options 5.5 action range remains one of the most collectable and highly thought of forms of memrobillia among Doctor Who fans. Many regularly purchase these figures to help build their collections. With such intricate detail, and realistic proportions, the Character Options range is a popular and creative range to collect and is the highest articulated figure ever produced of the series. This book examines the history of the 5.5 range of Doctor Who (their other Doctor Who products to SJA figures and Character Building figures may be for another book, or even the time that I collected these 5.5 inch figures for my collection). 

My journey began with the 5.5 inch range when I first received the 11th Doctor's TARDIS for Christmas 2010. Over the following years, I received other very deluxe sets such as the Daleks In Manhatten set or the Fourth Doctor Adventure set. I continued to collect various other pieces from time to time such as Telos Cybermen or Slitheen, and I had always wanted to build up a Dalek army with the Character Options range. At this time however, I was busy concentrating on my Classic Who DVD collection so I could have every piece of Classic Doctor Who to own. 

Once my DVD collection was completed in 2018, I turned to the Character Options range, and by 2020 I had started building up my Doctor Who action figure range. These started with the 2019 B&M 3 packs to the 2020 range, before delving back into collecting some of the older figures whilst I kept up to date with the current releases. By 2022, I had so many figures that I was running out of space, and now can buy very little more so that I can fit it all into my collection. I will continue to build my collection gradually over the years.

Throughout, I will be sharing my memories and the collection that I have built up, and discuss my thoughts and feelings on how I feel the range has developed as the popularity and quality of Doctor Who has varied throughout the years since its revival in 2005. I will begin with the rise of Character Options and how they came to start releasing Doctor Who products. These playful figures have helped to build our Dalek and Cybermen armies, and have greatly helped me to inspire to create my stories because I turn my adventures with my figures to help boost my thoughts. I have greatly enjoyed spending hours with my figures and creating new stories, and will continue to do so for many more years to come.

The list below examines the selection of choices of figures I used to decide what figures to represent on the cover of this book. I have tried to represent each Doctor's era as best I can and also feature iconic monsters as well as sets that pay essential significance to the range;

9th Doctor with an Auton's hand (2008); One of the first figures to be released, the range kickstarted following the relaunch of the series, and what better way to start it with a 9th Doctor figure?

Time Crash set (2008); This set represented the height of the CO range when releasing their huge wave of figures based around Modern Who, featuring a figure with not only the 10th Doctor, but of the 5th Doctor.

6th Doctor Classic Series Wave 1 (2008); Part of the Build-a-wave to complete the Giant Robot, this was when the Classic Series was officially part of the Character Options wave.

Cyberman Figure set (2009/2012); This set featured 1960s Cybermen, and was an essential feature to include Cybermen on the front cover.

Enemies of the 3rd Doctor Collectors set (2011); A definitive set of villains and monsters from the 3rd Doctor era, helping to represent Jon Pertwee's era of the series.

Toys R Us 7th Doctor & Renegade Dalek (2013); The 50th Anniversary wave of figures is reflected with the Doctor + Dalek releases to represent one of the greatest stories of all time.

11th Doctor B&M set (2014); From here, we see B&M begin to take hold of the line and continually release new figures each year under their own brand.

4th Doctor Regenerated and TARDIS (2019); To repackage the new branding from 2019, B&M released this new set based on Robot to kickstart the new style. This also displays the range's releases of TARDIS sets.

Jungles Of Mechanus (2020); Representing the Character Online exclusives and the HOTD line which commenced in 2020, this set was a must-have for fans.

Creation Of The Daleks (2022); Based around the incredible Genesis Of The Daleks, this is where the range has so far reached after 17 years of producing Doctor Who toys lines.