Review: Doctor Who Vortex Edition Fourth Doctor (Season 14) Set, part of the Yeti Collect-and-Build Wave for 2026
“Because I'm a Time Lord. I've been around, you know. Two hearts, respiratory bypass system. I haven't lived seven hundred and fifty years without learning something.”
The fourth of Character Toys 2026 Doctor Who sets in their Yeti Collect-and-Build wave continued the classic theme established in the 3rd release of Liz Shaw and the Primord after the first two sets were themed around the New Who, with the Cybermen and 15th Doctor sets. This fourth release moved us into Tom Baker’s era and a set focused on the Doctor himself.
The Fourth Doctor Set, exclusive to Character Toys, was released on the 19th of October and shipped immediately, with stock arriving a few days later. The set sold out almost immediately. It arrives in the established white-themed packaging with a cut-off right corner and uses the 60th Anniversary diamond logo and a blue image of the TARDIS in the bottom corner, while around the large window a blue-hued vortex design is used - blue being the established colour for Fourth Doctor era releases.
The window displays the figures and contents, and these are then confirmed around the side of the window in diamond call-outs that confirm this is a “High Decor Vortex Edition Figure” in the “5.5” scale” and that it contains an alternative head, hands, jelly babies, and a fabric scarf. Being part of the Yeti collect-and-build series, a final callout in the bottom right confirms that the set contains the Yeti’s hips and legs.
The two side panels of the box carry the Doctor Who logo and wrap-around designs of the TARDIS (to the left only) and the blue Vortex. The rear of the box is turned over to a full text panel that runs through the Fourth Doctor era, his personality, his companions, and his various adventures. Under this, we have a blue panel dedicated to the Abominable Snowman, the same as has been present on all of the sets so far. This covers details of the story from 1967 and the figure and its assembly.
For boxed collectors and those wanting to preserve the packaging, it does arrive in an outer cardboard Character Toys box, but the set I received had no further packing material between this and the outer shipping box - so any ding in transit will potentially translate to the display box.
In the box, we have an enclosed plastic tray into which the Doctor is tied with white paper ties. The smaller accessories and hands are taped in, while the Doctor’s other head and the Yeti parts are held in by the grip of the tray only. This tray then sits into a cardboard insert with a full panel image replicating the corridor and control room of the Sandminer from The Robots of Death (1977).
The sole figure in the set is a brand new Fourth Doctor, arriving in the packaging in the outfit he would be seen wearing in the abandoned story Shada from 1979. This starts off with a pair of ‘pirate boots’ in brown, with a darker wash over the top to add depth and weathering. The Doctor is then wearing grey trousers, mottled into a pattern with tiny black and white dots.
The jacket is a long-length brown coat, applied over the core body by way of a rubbery plastic sleeve. The coat is dark brown with painted buttons and another darker wash to age and weather the piece. The same colouring is used on the sleeves, with the arms ending with a white cuff of the shirt beneath and flesh coloured hands. Under the jacket is the Doctor’s ‘Shada’ open waistcoat in dark grey with pinky/purple spots, and a white open-neck shirt.
The head on the figure on arrival is a stern-looking Tom Baker without his hat. This is skin-toned with painted eyes and lips, and then with the hair sculpted as part of the head and painted dark brown with a lighter brown drybrush application to add texture.
For those who like the Fourth Doctor to be wearing his trademark hat, there is a second head option. This one has Baker smiling with the same painted eyes, lips, and now his teeth. The hair is similarly sculpted and painted, but shaped so his fedora hat sits on top. The hat is coloured brown with a darker black band. It is not removable, which is a shame but something that would be pretty impractical considering Tom’s curly hair.
The heads swap out OK, but the fit is very tight, and the removal feels overly forceful, and there is a worry the peg would snap. With the head off the peg, you can then execute another switch in the look of the figure. To allow the figure to have two defined outfits, the front of the shirt and waistcoat is another rubberised plastic sleeve that sits over the neck peg in the collar, and then down the front of a plain torso, with the sides tucking in under the coat and the piece held in check with a plug-in socket. This pulls out and detaches the shirt piece so it can be removed over the open neck peg.
With the Shada shirt & waistcoat removed, you can then add the Season 14 checked design with a red necktie, now moving the figure to match the Season 14 outfit he wears for much of the season, starting with The Masque of Mandragora and running through to The Robots of Death (as per the cardboard backdrop) before he switched costumes for the final story, the Talons of Weng Chaing.
This new waistcoat is fastened and is a sandy tan finish with painted dark grey checked lines, both thick to create the main pattern, and then in the infill between the main panels with thinner lining. The visible shirt collars are painted white, while the neck scarf is painted red and hangs down and out over the waistcoat.
Both shirt parts are reasonably easy to fit, but you do have to use the flexibility in the plastic to bend it around and under the coat at each side once it's sitting around the neck. The fit is really good, and it's not noticeable that this is removable clothing. And while this solution for alternative looks is not new (Professor Bracewell, the Eleventh/Twelth Doctor regeneration), this slick execution does open up a lot of options for future variations within the same release - particularly for the Classic Doctors.
The Vortex figures, in their truest sense and without any re-used parts, offer enhanced pinless articulation vs the original figures. The Fourth Doctor is an entirely new figure, so it utilises everything the Vortex line brings to the party in terms of joints and movement. There are 16 points in total, with the legs now featuring ankle rockers alongside the knee, thigh and hip joints. The arms lose the ugly bicep swivel and add in a rotating elbow, while the shoulder raises both upward and outward from the body. And while the waist joint remains a rotation, the neck above it now moves to a ball joint connecting into the head, giving the head itself the ability to both rotate and tilt to look up and down.
This all grants the Fourth Doctor plenty of gestures and display options. He can be posed with wider leg stances - within the confines of the coat tails - and even running positions, with ankle rockers planting the feet and keeping the figure stable.
The arm movement comes to life as we start to explore the accessories, starting with a silver sonic screwdriver with a red emitter that sits in the shaped right hand. The extended arm motion can have the sonic deployed to scan or interact with computers, robots, or even doors.
While there is only one right hand, the Doctor gets three different left hands. The main one is a flat-posed hand, and this can be changed simply enough with a ‘Stop’ gesture that Tom Baker often used on promotional images. This looks brilliant, and is so evocative of the Fourth Doctor era and various comics or annual covers of the time where he uses the pose.
The final hand and its associated accessory has taken some 20 years to arrive in the Doctor Who line, but with this 2026 release we can finally display our Fourth Doctor offering people one of his jelly babies. A third left hand is shaped to hold a white ruffled bag of the sweets, with the open top inclusive of the shaped sweets and each of them painted in different colours. It's another magnificent look, having the Doctor hold out the Jelly Babies and offering them out.
And then we come to a further innovation that Character have deployed in this set, the first fabric soft goods scarf for the Fourth, or indeed any Doctor to date. In fact, soft goods as a whole have been limited in the lines for 20+ years, but here they have been seen as a premium Vortex Edition upgrade. The scarf comes bagged and then opens up fully to a multicoloured strip with fringed ends. Being fabric, it can be wrapped and curled around the figure in a number of configurations with the intention of mirroring the Season 14 look.
The problem is that the execution does not look particularly good. While patience will get you some half-decent looks, the scarf is too wide, too long, and not heavy enough in its heft to hang naturally on the figure. The raised collars of the coat also make it problematic, with limited space around the neck to snag the scarf, so when it's swapped it looks more like a shawl or poncho, swamping the figure.
Ironically, the existing softer plastic scarf piece included on the Shada Doctor from a few years past fits the figure perfectly, and looks so much more impressive on display. It would arguably have been easier to re-use this mould and add in the scarf in this format than develop the soft goods option.
Using the plastic scarf from the Shada release and with the Shada TARDIS (not included)
There is, however, a saving grace in the scarf in that it looks great off the figure and hung on a prop or rail such as the coat stand from the original 9th/10th Doctor TARDIS playset (not included).
Using coatstand from original 9th/10th Doctor TARDIS playset (not included)
The Fourth Doctor figure is a definite improvement on anything we’ve had so far. It does make Baker taller, but while that looks good in terms of matching Tom’s stature, it does make this new figure a little too tall with the Classic TARDIS models. You can see in these comparisons the enhancements in the face, while not straying excessively away from the ethos of the line so to look out of place displayed with older figures.
vs various older 4th Doctor figures (right), including (from left to right) Shada, Regeneration, Robot
The set includes the fourth part of the Abominable Snowman, the hips and legs, a large part and likely one of the reasons the set is a single figure with accessories vs. the multi-packs we’ve seen so far. Like the other pieces, this is sculpted in a fur finish, cast in brown plastic, with darker washes and lighter brushing to bring out the fur finish. The ribbed feet are black and include three large claws, which are painted white. While you can connect all your parts now to see the full height and girth of the Yeti, I am waiting for the final arm before putting everything together, as the construction and design look like it will be something that won’t be coming apart again after it's built.
Final picture shows Yeti parts posed, but not connected together as yet
It is interesting that the scarf, when placed around the Yeti, looks better sized and scaled than it does on the Doctor.
The Vortex Edition Fourth Doctor set costs £44.99, the same as what is charged for a two-pack of Cybermen or Liz Shaw and the Primord. This set does include more parts and accessories, and with the scarf, shirts and heads taken into account, there are 24 different combos available, although in essence that equates to either a Season 14 Doctor or a 1979 Shada Doctor.
Considering the size of the Yeti part, I can understand the pricing model, but I may have been happier seeing the Yeti split into six parts and Character giving us an extra set and then extending this set with other accessories or parts. A K9, for example, would have rounded out the set, or on a smaller scale perhaps some of the Robots of Death parts already in the line to give world-building options. Or even give us the Coat Rack so we have somewhere to hang the scarf.
This scarf does not work for me at all, and while it is not critical to the set, I would have preferred Character to stick to the existing moulded rubber versions. Everything else is a triumph, with the swap-out shirts working really well, and the hands & parts offering plenty of the Fourth Doctor’s personality into your display. We now have just one more set to go, and our 2026 Yeti journey will be over. Join us in November for the review of the Wirrn and the Abominable Snowman itself.
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About Me : As a child of the 70's and 80's I grew up in a golden age for action figures and in my youth bought and sold myself through collections of Star Wars, G.I. Joe (Action Force) and M.A.S.K. while also dabbling in He-Man, Transformers and Ghostbusters. Roll forward and I am now reliving that Youth with the action figures of today and am a collector and fan of the larger 6-8 inch figures from my favourite movie and TV licences - including the ones mentioned above, but also the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Doctor Who and the Aliens. I launched The Mephitsu Archives in 2015 with a view of creating a UK focused site or these figures where fans can pick up the latest action figure news, read reviews and get information on where to buy their figures and what is currently on store shelves. I hope I am delivering that to you guys...
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