It’s been a long road… Getting from pre-order to here! Actually, EXO-6’s Captain Archer has been in my collection for a short while now, but his review got side-stepped by Quark and dozens of other things, so it’s long overdue that I remedy that. But it really was a long wait, as I pre-ordered this guy on day one and it seemed to take forever for him to finally ship. I really liked Enterprise a lot when it first aired, but in recent years I’ve come to absolutely adore it and as far as I’m concerned, it is indeed the last Star Trek series. I was pretty surprised that EXO-6 started tackling these characters before getting much of a foothold in The Next Gen crew, but then again, how weird is it that the series that has garnered most of their attention has been Voyager!

EXO-6’s presentation is pretty close to what we see out of your average Hot Toys release. We get a window box with a sleeve and the figure comes nestled in a molded plastic tray with the accessories around them. The foil lettering is nice and overall it’s a pretty smart and snappy design. But, EXO-6 has to be some of the only people in the Sixth-Scale biz who like to use substandard pictures for their solicitation and packaged shots. This photo on the front of the box is terrible and is not at all representative of what you actually get in the box. We saw a great example of this with Quark as well. Many of EXO-6’s Trek figures tend to come as Standard and slightly more expensive Essential releases, which is their way of saying Regular and Deluxe, but Archer here appears to have only the one release.

Captain Archer comes out of the box all ready for display in his blue 22nd Century Starfleet issue jumpsuit. I loved this uniform design as it had a very practical and realistic NASA feel to it that fit the show’s tech style. EXO-6 did an excellent job tailoring the costume and even recreating the myriad of zippered compartments. Boy did early Starfleet design love those zippers! Some of these actually have working pulls, while others are just the tracks for show. The stitching is immaculate and the suit fits the figure well, while leaving a bit of slack for comfort and ease of movement. He has his gold Command piping around his shoulders, sculpted plastic rank pips, and his Enterprise patch on his left bicep. The blue is nice and vibrant and while there is some padding under it, this is probably the least restrictive costume I’ve had on any of my EXO-6 Trek figures.

The portrait is excellent, not only in terms of the likeness to Scott Bakula but also the general skin tone and subtle texturing in the skin. It’s a far cry from the waxy mannequin head on the front of the box. The detail in the sculpted hair is pretty sharp. EXO-6 has some ground to cover before catching up to Hot Toys, but I think they’re work is running pretty close to some of the other heavy hitters in the field, particularly Sideshow. Each new figure gets me more excited to see what they’re going to do with the next portrait. I think Bakula could be one of those likenesses that’s difficult to hit without wandering into caricature, but I really love what we got here. There’s an optimistic wonder to his expression, which could be me misread as smug if you weren’t familiar with the character. Great stuff!

As you might expect, you get a few sets of hands to work with. These include relaxed hands, fists for punching Suliban and Xindi bastards, a right hand for holding his phaser, and a left hand for holding the Tricorder and Communicator. I found some of the hands to be a tight fit the first couple of times, but the wrists posts are pretty robust and after a couple of swaps they seemed to go easier and easier.

As for Starfleet gear, all the basic equipment is included here. The phase pistol includes a molded black plastic holster, which clips onto flaps on the right hip of the jumpsuit. The phaser itself is a gorgeous little piece of kit with black grips, some great silver and gray paintwork, and lots of sculpted detail. It’s a static piece, with no articulation, so the only thing missing is it’s top-break action.

The Communicator has a hinged lid, which in universe doubled as the device’s antenna. There’s a glossy sticker on the screen, which shows signal bars and a battery charge icon. These are extremely similar to cell phone icons, and I thought this was an inside joke, but after researching the props, I was surprised to learn that they’re actually screen accurate to the show. The sleeve zippers open, so you could probably fit this in there, but I wouldn’t recommend trying it.

And finally: The Tricorder! This accessory has two inserts for the top, one to display it closed up and one for it’s extended and active configuration. I like that EXO-6 uses swap out parts for some of their accessories, rather than go with fragile articulation. I think this piece looks great, but I feel like it might be a little undersized. Granted, I’ve never held one like I have Tricorder props from the Original Series or Next Generation, so it could very well be accurately scaled.

And the final accessory included in the box is Porthos the Beagle! Porthos comes sculpted in an attentive sitting position and he looks really great. The paint is really well done and I especially love the glossy finish to his nose and eyes. I always loved seeing Porthos make an appearance in the show and the writers even managed to work him into the stories from time to time. I’m surprised this space doggo made it into a standard release and wasn’t held back for a Deluxe, but as I mentioned earlier, Archer just had a single price point release.

And as always, our last stop on these sixth-scale figure reviews includes the stand. This is the exact same stand we saw with Captain Sisko and Quark and I dig it. The post has a crotch-cradle to support the figure, while the hexagonal base has a clear plastic cover over the surface and a printed Transporter pad under it. You can also swap that out with a segment of a larger circle and connect multiple stands together for a larger display and secure it with an included connection piece.

I purchased my Captain Archer for $210, which I believe was the MRSP at the time of pre-order and from the tailoring on the jumpsuit to the portrait, I think he turned out great and I’m thrilled to have him on my shelf. With five of EXO-6’s Sixth-Scale Trek figures in my collection, I can definitely say I think the property is in safe hands. It makes me so happy to see Enterprise getting some lovin’ on the collectibles front and I do hope they’re planning on running out the entire Bridge Crew and Phlox. Oddly enough, the second Enterprise figure released was the Andorian Commander Shran, but I’m not complaining about it. Indeed, he’ll likely be the next figure I check out in EXO-6’s Trek series.