Scattered throughout the last few months I’ve been posting features of stuff that I’m finding in my Toy Crawlspace, and some of that has been a cornucopia of Enterprise figures. The Crawlspace hunt has slowed down lately, partly because I’ve been too busy with Christmas coming, and partly because I’m still waiting for the chemical fog bomb I set off to kill the mutant bat infestation that has taken root up there. Anyway, it’s going to be a real struggle for me to keep daily content going this week with how crazy-busy I will be, so I’m trying to tackle some quick and easy stuff. And that’s where Archer comes in, because he’s quite similar to the Malcolm Reed and Travis Mayweather figures I looked at not too long ago. We should be able to do him justice rather briefly.
There’s the Enterprise packaging. It’s a card and bubble, but it’s huge and the clever use of printed inserts make it look more like a window box than an actual carded figure. The presentation here is great and you can tell a lot of love went into it. The inserts are printed with all sorts of panel lines to make it look like the hull of the ship and the window displays the figure quite nicely. There are even cutouts on the side panels to show off some of his gear. If you’re careful and have a razor blade handy, you might be able to preserve the packaging, but I just tore this sum’bitch open.
As I’ve noted before, I like the Enterprise uniforms. They look practical and are convincing as something our early deep space explorers might actually wear. They are not, however, the most exciting design for an action figure. Nonetheless, Art Asylum went out of their way to make it something special. The torso part of the jumpsuit is made of soft rubbery plastic laid over the figure’s buck. It’s a cool effect that adds to what could have been a rather boring figure. The suit is loaded with sculpted wrinkles, cinching around the belt, zippers, and it features the departmental piping on the shoulders and the Enterprise patch on the shoulder.
The Art Asylum inmates have always been pros at sculpting great portraits for their figures and Archer here is no exception. The likeness to Scott Bakula is quite impressive and the paintwork is pretty clean. You need to get in really close to see any tiny inconsistencies in the hairline.
If you’re the kind of person that doesn’t want your Starfleet Captain sitting on the bridge all day, you should find the articulation here pretty accommodating. The arms have ball joints at the shoulders, swivels the biceps and wrists, and they are hinged at the elbows. The hip joints are concealed by the jumpsuit, but they feel they have some kind of rotating hinge offering a good range of motion. The legs have swivels in the thighs, hinges in the knees, and ball jointed ankles. Archer can swivel at the waist and features a ball jointed neck with a generous range of movement.
As for accessories, you get the same assortment of Starfleet Gear that came with the other Bridge Officers: A phase pistol, a communicator, and a tricorder. You also get an extra pair of hands. The communicator and tricorder are pretty small and difficult for him to hold all that well, but the phase pistol is still a really cool piece, which Archer can wield brilliantly. Finally, you get the translucent blue Enterprise base stand, which looks beautiful with the figure standing on it, but inexplicably has no pegs to secure him to it. Weird!
If you’re one of the minority like me that liked Enterprise, then you need this figure in your life. He represents the usual fine sculpting and craftsmanship that I’ve come to expect from Art Asylum and he looks damn fine on the shelf alongside his fellow Starfleet Officers. My only real gripe with this line was that we never did get the entire Bridge Crew in their jumpsuits, and that makes collecting these a little bittersweet. Oh yeah, this figure was also available in a larger bridge base set, which included the Captain’s Chair and a piece of the bridge which could connect to others. I do believe I have one of those kicking around here still in the box, but I haven’t unearthed it yet!
The huge window box is actually not quite as big as the Bird of Prey’s package, but it is deeper. It’s the same style of blue cloudy star field deco only this time you get a shot of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, with arms crossed, staring out approvingly at you, as if to say, “Well done on buying this ship.” That makes me happy. After all, deep down don’t we all really just want approval from Captain Picard? The Star Trek logo is in “The Original Series” font with “The Next Generation” below it. Wait… they can’t do that… can they? I’ll confess the mixing of the two generations looks weird, like it’s a knock off package or something. The front panel of the box is cut out to show the bulk of the ship, while still hiding the two 
I was expecting a lot of detail, but I’ll confess the finished sculpt still exceeds my expectations. The Enterprise-D has a lot of surface space, and every bit of it is covered with panel lines. I mean, damn, you can practically see every single plate of tritanium-duranium alloy that went into the hull’s construction. The Escape Pod hatches are sculpted, the ridges on the Shuttle Bay doors, even the little docking hatches on the sides of the Torpedo Bay launchers. If Art Asylum left any details out, I sure as hell can’t find them. There is a little more assembly seaming on this ship than was evident on the Bird of Prey. It’s mostly noticeable along the aft edges of the ship and where the back of the neck meets the front two pieces. They aren’t terrible, but worth mentioning.
The paintwork compliments the sculpted detail wonderfully. Every window is painted onto the ship’s skin from the random windows of crew quarters to the line of panels that runs across the wall of the Conference Room and even the viewports of Ten Forward. The Escape Pod hatches are painted tan and you’ve got a darker grey on the Shuttle Bay doors and the Phaser Array strips. The lettering is all crisp and hugs the hull better than what I remember seeing in the test shots. Of all the tiny details, I think the one that impresses me the most are the tiny scoring lines that run along the perimeter of all the Phaser Arrays. Holy shit that’s cool!
The Enterprise comes with two display stands and they are the biggest pieces of shit I’ve ever seen. They’re basically the same style of thin, opaque plastic pieces as the one that came with the Bird of Prey, only these feature the ball joint under the connection points and are sculpted with the Starfleet “Comm Badge” style insignia. They look cheap, but that’s not the problem I have with them. While the Bird of Prey used a fixed connection that works perfectly, these stands use ball joints and they work well until you manipulate them a couple of times and then they fail miserably. The ball joint just can’t handle the weird weight displacement of the ship and it constantly wants to drop the ship forward onto the Saucer Section. They will work fine if you want to pose the ship in an upward climb, but forget about getting it displayed parallel to the surface its standing on. You see those two side shots of the ship? Well, the stands won’t do that anymore. Hey guys, what the hell is the point of a poseable ball joint if it can only hold the ship in one position??? I’ve tried gumming it up with blue tack, which didn’t work. I may try some nail polish next.
So two stands? Yes, The complete Enterprise displays on either stand by plugging it into the hole closest to the Deflector Dish. You can also display the Enterprise separated by plugging the smaller stand into the middle hole of the Star Drive section and using the larger stand for the Saucer Section. While I doubt I’ll ever display the ship separated, it’s very cool to have this option. The instructions show a plug that can be put into the hole of the Saucer Section to cover it up when you are displaying the ship as one piece. It’s a great idea, but sadly no such plug was included in my box.
FigureFan Zero 