The second official wave of Doctor Who Classics figures has been a long time coming. Granted, since the first Classics wave, we’ve had a number of special releases based on the original series, including the first three Doctors, a couple of Dalek sets, and an entire wave of Cybermen, all but one of which was from the original series. But that hasn’t stopped the endless speculation and anticipation over what would constitute the next official wave. Well, finally they’re here… six figures and this time CO abandoned the Build-A-Figure gimmick. The figures include The un-regenerated Master from “The Deadly Assassin,” An Ice Warrior, an “Earthshock” Cyberman, Morbius from “The Brain of Morbius” and the two figures we’re looking at today: The Servo Robot Mummy from “The Pyramids of Mars” and the Green Voc Robot from “The Robots of Death.” Both of these figures are based on characters from Tom Baker’s tenure as the Doctor, and they are the only two figures in this wave to have been previously released. Both the Mummy and the Voc Robot were available in the Fourth Doctor Adventure Set, which also included a repack Tom Baker Doctor and a Suicide Dalek. I passed on that set because it was more than I wanted to spend when I already had a Fourth Doctor figure, and it was being strongly hinted at that at least two of these figures would get carded releases somewhere down the line.
Sorry, no in-package shots. I greedily ripped these open before I had access to my camera. The packages featured the fourth series NuWho logo on printed paper sandwiched in a clamshell. There’s an insert in the bubble to personalize it, while the back panel is generic, showing all the figures in this wave. Make sure you have a good pair of scissors or a blade to open these bastards, and get ready to contend with some twist ties once you get it open.
The Servo Robot Mummy is a very simple sculpt, but that’s not really a fault of the figure, but rather the character design that its based on. Its basically just sculpted bandages with a gray paint wash and very little else, save for the small control pyramid sticking out the back. The contours of the mummy’s face and chest are distinctively recreated from the show, but overall this figure holds very few surprises.
The articulation on this figure is not bad, especially for what it is. From the waist down you get everything you could ask for. The upper legs rotate and have lateral movement for wider stances. The knees are hinged and there are cut swivel joints in the thighs and ankles. The arms rotate at the shoulders are hinged at the elbows and have swivel cuts in the wrists. He also swivels at the waist. We’re used to getting ball joints in a lot of the Character Options figures’ shoulders these days, but not here and the head has no articulation. I think it says enough to point out that this figue is capable of a much greater range of movement than the robots in the story.
The Mummy Robot comes a coptic jar that opens to reveal a removable silver cylinder. If I remember the episode correctly, the cylinder was a power cell for a force shield. The detailing on the coptic jar is really nice, and I’m told this is a variant from the one included in the Fourth Doctor Adventure Set. Its weathered to look antique and the sculpting on the top piece as well as the cylinder is great. A lot of toy companies would have considered this a throwaway accessory, but it’s clear that CO put some love into it.
While it may sound like I’m unimpressed with the Mummy’s sculpt, the truth is I like it a lot and it’s certainly a great representation of the character. I have to give CO props for making this figure at all as I had just about given up hope for many more classic-themed but somewhat minor aliens. I will just add that I was a little disappointed with the Mummy’s size. He doesn’t stand much taller than the 4th Doctor himself, so the figure really needed to be a bit taller and a lot more bulkier to be accurate. At one point it was suggested this guy might be a BAF, and perhaps that would have seen him in a better scale. Right now, these are running around $15 each, but if they drop in price, I may grab one more so I can recreate the classic two-mummy-chest-crushing-action from the episode.
And that brings us to the Voc Robot. I’m not going to go on for too long about this guy, because its a repaint of a figure I’ve already reviewed twice a long time ago when it was released in both a silver and a black version in the first Classics wave. This is the same great sculpt, and one of my favorites in a long line of great Who figures from CO. The “Robots of Death” are an awesome design, with an cool art deco look about them. Between these and the clockwork men from “The Girl in the Fireplace” its tough to decide which robot design is cooler. Anyway, the figure really captures the head and the outfit perfectly and CO has even included a sheet of V-designation stickers to apply to his chest. I’m not a huge fan of repaints, but considering how great a sculpt this figure is and the fact that it represents the three different types of robots in the episode, I was glad to pick it up.
There is actually one new thing about this figure and that’s located in the head sculpt. This Voc’s head has light piping in the eyes to make them glow red just like the robots’ eyes glowed in the episode when they got taken over and turned into murderers. Its a really cool effect, even if the red plug in the top of the head is a little unsightly. Its also something that wasn’t included in the Voc Robot released in the Fourth Doctor Adventure Set.
I mainly reviewed these two figures together because they were both already released, but it’s also worth mentioning that they were the two figures that I was the least excited about in this wave. Don’t get me wrong, they are both really cool figures, but they are kind of overshadowed by the sheer awesomeness of the remainder of the wave. Nonetheless, getting them both in hand I was really happy with the way they turned out.
Next time, we’ll take a look at Morbius and The Master.
FigureFan Zero 