Tag Archives: character options

Apr 24 2012

Doctor Who: K-1 Robot Build-A-Figure by Character Options

A couple of years back, Character Options actually released their Classic Doctor Who figures in waves of single carded releases, rather than episode themed boxed sets. One of the cool things about these waves is that one of them came with Build-A-Figure parts to build the K-1 Robot seen in Tom Baker’s debut story as the 4th Doctor, which was aptly but unimaginatively named “Robot.” I like “Robot” a lot. Besides the fact that it introduced us to that most iconic of all Doctors, its a pretty good story that takes the core element of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein story and runs with it. Its one of those few old Who episodes where the villain is complex enough to earn our sympathy. Let’s set aside the whole part where it has the K-1, grown huge by absorbing radiation, running around with an unconvincing Barbie doll of Sarah Jane. Of course, the other thing I love about this episode is the amazing design for the K-1 itself.

And there he is, in all his Build-A-Figure glory. No package shot, because he came scattered over eight carded figures, which included: A Sea Devil, a Zygon, two robots from “Robots of Death,” Magnus Greel, as well as the 4th, 5th, and 6th Doctors. I recall picking up this wave all in one shot, so I was able to put him together all at once. Its a good thing too, because a couple of these figures became notoriously hard to find, and I probably would have blown rent money if I had to in order to complete this beauty.
I can’t gush enough over this guy’s design. He has that classic retro kind of look and the figure is a beautiful recreation of the costume used in the episode. He’s big and has a real bulky upper body with fanned segmented shoulders and an amazing head sculpt with clear red translucent dome in his head. There are little sculpted instruments and dials on his chest and back, as well as some clear hosing. The cylindrical, mechanical arms end in soft rubber claws so that they can hold his gun. Call me crazy, but I’m pretty sure I’d shit myself if this thing was coming after me.
K-1’s articulation is a tad limited, but it matches the mobility of the actual suit perfectly. The head is ball jointed and can turn and look up and down a bit. The arms have some limited movement at the shoulders. Its just enough so that he can raise his gun a bit. He has a ball joint in his waist that lets him swivel at the waist and bend a bit. His legs will swivel at the hips and he can move his legs back and front a bit. Lastly, the front of his feet are hinged.                          

There’s not a ton of paint apps on this guy, but he didn’t really need them. There’s a little black paintwork on some of his dials and his mouth and eyes. You also get a little red striping on his shoulders. The rest of the figure is cast in a really satisfying metallic silver finish.

The K-1 ranks up there as one of my all time favorite Doctor Who Classic figures. He was a perfect choice for a BAF, since he is so bulky and required a lot of special tooling and joints. He would certainly fit in one of the boxed sets CO releases now, but back then he was just too big for a standard card. He holds together perfectly and looks amazing standing at the back of one of my Doctor Who displays and towering over the rest of the figures. Looking back, I was pretty shocked that I hadn’t featured this guy here on FigureFan before, nor have I explored the wave of figures that contained the parts. Maybe I’ll try to dig those out for next week.
Apr 18 2012

Doctor Who: Judoon Trooper and Judoon Captain by Character Options

Its time for another jaunt in the TARDIS, back in time, to some of Character Options’ earlier Doctor Who figures. There’s more than a few of these guys that we haven’t shined the Spotlight of FigureFan on before. And with not a lot of new stuff on the shelves and pegs right now, I’ve got to find something to look at, haven’t I? Anyway, I’ll be off to The Pub in a little bit, so this is going to have to be a quickie.

I adore the Judoon. When they were first introduced in the episode “Smith and Jones” I thought they were Sontarans, right up until the Captain took his helmet off. You can’t blame me, what with their black leather armor and giant dome helmets. Nonetheless, giant space rhino mercenaries are just as cool as spud-headed clone warriors. The fact that they turned out to be the right arm of The Shadow Proclamation was just icing on the cake. Some time ago, I featured CO’s 1:6 scale treament of the Judoon, which you can check out HERE, but I was pretty surprised that I hadn’t tackled the 5-inch scale versions before. The larger Judoon featured a removable helmet, whereas these smaller guys came in two versions: The un-helmeted Captain and the helmeted Trooper.
Ok, so from the neck down, we’re basically looking at the same figure, with just two key differences. Let’s start with the Trooper. He’s got a huge, sculpted and non-removable, helmet. CO did a nice job sculpting his leathery armor, particularly the detail in the arms, the abdominal muscles, and all the tiny little belts and buckles that make him look like some kind of crazy S&M fiend. There aren’t a lot of paint apps, but what’s here is quite good. All the little buckles and pins are neatly painted silver. The strips of plastic that make up his “skirt” are soft, rubbery and quite flexible so as not to inhibit his leg movement. All in all, this is a pretty great likeness of the Trooper on the screen.

Mr. Judoon comes with three accessories. You get a gun, a language assimilator, and a bio scanner. The gun fits into the holster on the belt and the other two accessories peg into holes on his belt.
The Captain has his helmet off and I have to say, his head sculpt is brilliant. He’s got a cool textured, leathery skin and an angry toothy snarl. The horns look great and you have to love his tiny little Rhino ears. Its a shame CO couldn’t have pulled off a removable helmet for him, but I still love what we wound up with. The only other difference between the Captain and the Troopers is the inclusion of the language assimilation port in his neck. You can actually pull the assimilator off his belt and put it into the socket too! Why the Troopers have the assimilator when they don’t have the port is beyond me, but who am I to balk at extra accessories, eh?
The articulation on both figures is identical. You get arms that rotate at the shoulders, have hinged elbows, and swivels in the bicep and wrist. The legs have universal movement at the hips, hinges in the knees, and swivels in the thighs. The figure also swivels at the waist. Its fairly good poseability for a race that were more lumbering than agile in the show.
The great, or sad, thing about the Judoon figures was that they were dirt cheap for quite a while. I used to pick these things up for under six bucks each, and for a while I couldn’t stop myself. I was only able to dig out four Troopers for this feature, but I know I have at least one more Captain and a couple more Troopers hiding in a tote somewhere in the FigureFan Toy Closet. Whether friend or foe, these guys are among my favorite additions to The Doctor’s Rogue Gallery since the show came back in 2005, and I hope we get to see them again in a starring role sometime in the future… or the past.
Apr 11 2012

Doctor Who: Clockwork Men by Character Options

I’ve been hankering for some Who and since I haven’t picked up any new figures lately, today I’m going to hop in the TARDIS and go back to 2006 to look at a pair of very cool figures from the 2nd Series episode, “The Girl in the Fireplace.” This episode is still one of my favorites from the early modern series. Its a great story with lots of humor, action, and emotion and The Doctor in absolute top form. But most importantly it has some really cool and creepy robots known only as Clockwork Men. These robots were maintenance bots from the starship SS. Madame du Pompadour whose misguided attempt to repair the ship took them back in time and space to seek out the brain of the ship’s namesake. Seriously… how do they make this shit up? Anyway, the Clockwork Men looked absolutely amazing, from the intricately stitched period costumes right down to the weathered porcelain masks. I think they’re extra creepy because they have a slight clown vibe going on. All I know is if Doctor Who didn’t win an award for costume design for this episode, it got robbed.

I’ve had these figures for a while, so no in-package shot, but these figures were released in the old fashioned card and bubble. That’s before Character Options went with the sealed blister packs and then back to the card and bubble. The Clockwork Man was available in two versions back then: Blue coat and black coat and we’ll take a look at both of them today. Yes, there is also the elusive purple coat variant that came out later. And, yes, elusive is my way of saying, I don’t have one. While the black and blue versions do share some parts, they also each feature unique sculpting, so they aren’t just quick repaints. Let’s start off with the blue one…
The head sculpt is pretty spot on, albeit without the fine details of the spider-webbing cracks in the face mask. The sculpted hair is beautiful and the paint apps around the eyes and mouth are crisp and executed with precision. The body uses two soft plastic layers on top of the figure’s core, one is the vest and the other is the coat on top of it, and finally there’s a sculpted ruffle tied in a bow around his neck. Its a lot of additional plastic tooling for the figure, which gives it a great layered look and yet doesn’t bulk him up too much. The fringe of the blue vest and coat features strips of sculpted finery, painted in a nice glittery gold finish, as do the pockets, and even the individual buttons are painted gold. The arms end in ruffled sleeves and he has black gloved hands. The legs feature sculpted culottes and buckled shoes.  From sculpt to paintwork, this is an amazing looking figure!
The black coated Clockwork Man shares the same head, legs, and hands as the blue one, but everything else is new. He has the same sculpted and layered vest and coat, but his vest is less pronounced, and his coat joins at the chest and then parts down the rest of the way. Even his ruffled necktie is different. The jacket has a somewhat more elaborate deco of sculpted finery and buttons, all painted in the same pleasing gold, and he has some additional red paintwork around his sleeves. While this figure’s head sculpt is the same, the paintwork on the face is different to give him more of a unique look.
Articulation is identical for both figures. The necks are jointed to swivel, although with the heads on, you can’t get too much movement out of them. The arms rotate at the shoulder, have hinges at the elbows, and swivel at the wrists. The legs have universal movement at the hips, hinges at the knees, and the torso swivels at the waist. Yeah, there’s not a lot of articulation here, but the basic points are covered, and these guys moved pretty stiffly in the episode, so I’m not sure all that much more was needed in the figures.
Both Clockwork Men feature the same two gimmicks. The heads are removable to reveal the clear globe with the clockwork gears underneath. There wasn’t a lot of detail CO could get into the small globed head, but what’s here conveys the idea pretty well. They each also have the multi-function tools, which plug into their sleeves, and each figure’s tool is unique and furnished with sculpted detail and paintwork.
It couldn’t have been easy to capture all the intricacies of these guys in a 5-inch figure, and yet Character Options did a great job. Each figure is so unique looking it seems unfair to refer to them as variants, even though they do share some parts. Overall, I think this pair is a testament to why I love CO’s work so much. The Clockwork men were just one-off villains and yet they poured so much love and attention into their figures, it really shows how much they respect the property. These are two of my favorite figures from the early series. And yes… one of these days I will track down the purple coated one too.
Mar 17 2012

Doctor Who: Professor Bracewell by Character Options

“Victory of the Daleks” is probably one of the most maligned episodes to come out of Series 5. Personally, I don’t mind it much at all. Sure, the story was crap, but it had its moments and one of them was Bill Paterson’s performance as Professor Bracewell, the tragic Dalek android who was programmed to believe he was human. The Daleks have snuffed out plenty of lives as they’ve rampaged across the small screen over the last 50 years. They’re evil, I get that. But I don’t think the scope of their cruelty was ever driven home as well as when they blew off Bracewell’s hand just to illustrate that he was a mere mechanical pawn in their plot against The Doctor and that his entire existence was just one big work of fiction. Oh, and by the way… he was a bomb too. Yep, the Daleks aren’t just evil, they’re also dicks. He was a great character, and I finally got starved enough for NuWho figures that I decided to pick him up.

Bracewell comes in the standard style cardback that has been used for the Series 5 and 6 figures. Its serviceable and displays the figure quite well. There’s not much else here to say. You get a couple of extra goodies with Bracewell that are mounted beside him inside the bubble. The figure is available in two variants. One with a flesh-toned left hand as he was seen in “Victory of the Daleks” and another with a gloved hand as he was seen briefly in “The Pandorica Opens.” I got the glove-handed version.
Bracewell comes equipped with a couple of different display options, so let’s start with regular Bracewell first. Ok, so he’s basically a guy in a suit wearing a labcoat. Not terribly exciting, but my hats off to Character Options for doing a great job with the detail and paintwork. The headsculpt is an excellent likeness of Paterson and while eyeglasses are usually tough to do in this scale, I think CO pulled it off quite well, as they are actually sculpted separately from his head. The tie and collar are nicely sculpted, as is the chain on his fob watch. The labcoat features sculpted pockets and buttons and lots of little wrinkles. Paintwork includes the tiny stripes on his shirt and tie and the sharp, clean detailing on his watch chain. There’s a little paint slop along his hairline, but nothing too bad.
The first alternate display option involves pulling off Bracewell’s left arm at the swivel joint and replacing it with the one with the blown off hand. There’s some paintwash around the coat sleeve to make it look damaged from the blast and the stump is an exposed clump of wires and servos. Cool!
The other display option involves pulling off the front of the figure’s torso and swapping it with the alternate one. Its actually sculpted in a separate piece and plugs into three sockets on the figure’s body. The alternate torso reveals his robotic body and the countdown dial for his internal bomb. The effect is very well done.
Bracewell has decent enough articulation, especially for a lab guy. You get a swivel neck, swivel shoulders, swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinged elbows. His legs feature universal movement at the hips, swivels in the thighs, and hinged knees.
I’ve heard some folk refer to Professor Bracewell as the Dr Constantine figure of this wave. I can’t say as I agree, as a character Bracewell had a much bigger impact on “Victory” than Constantine did on “Empty Child/Doctor Dances.” They’re both dudes in lab coats, though, I get it. I’ll concede this isn’t a “must have” figure by any standards, but I think CO put some really nice work into him. In all honesty, I waited until I could snag him for five bucks, but either way I would have been perfectly happy with him.
Mar 9 2012

Doctor Who: “Destiny of the Daleks” Collector Set by Character Options

It’s more Who today. Yay for more Who! Today we’re looking at another one of the four Daleks-and-Davros-themed sets that came out not all that long ago. These consisted of 4-packs based on the episodes, “Genesis of the Daleks,” “Revelation of the Daleks,” Destiny of the Daleks,” and “Resurrection of the Daleks.” The one I previously looked at was the 6th Doctor “Revelation” set, this time we’re checking out the 4th Doctor’s “Destiny” set.

The style of packaging is the same for all four sets. You get a long window box with the older style blue background and 2005-era logo. There are lots of photo stills from the episode and the back of the package has a nice blurb about the  story. The interior of the box features a tray with a printed backdrop from the episode, which you can save and use for display. “Destiny” was one of my favorite episodes growing up. It had Daleks and Davros, Tom Baker was really on his game, and the lovely Lalla Ward was wearing that adorable pink version of The Doctor’s scarf and coat. CO, when you finally get around to doing a figure based on Romana II, this is the version I want! Anyway, these sets all follow the same formula: You get a Doctor figure, a Davros figure, and two Daleks. These were a good idea for CO as they allowed for an economy of repaints, resculpts and repacks across four sets. And yet while these may seem like a quick cash grab, CO did right by fans and paid a remarkable amount of detail to the subtle differences between the sets.
Let’s start with The Doctor. Oh, look! I’ve got another 4th Doctor figure for my collection. Ten years ago I would have killed for a Tom Baker figure, now I’ve got a half dozen. You’d think I’d be griping about this, but nope. This version is a nice variant with new sculpting and his grey jacket. I’ve got plenty of him in his brown jacket, one in his burgundy jacket and even one in shirtsleeves. He uses the same serious expression 4th Doctor hatless head that we’ve had before and I think it still holds up well. His scarf is the same sculpt with new paintwork. It doesn’t quite seem episode accurate, but I’ll take it anyhow. This time he isn’t wearing his tie and his shirt collar is open. As with previous figures, his head is easy to pop off if you want to mix and match heads from your other Tom Bakers. I was hoping against hope this one would have the new ball jointed shoulders, but no dice, as you get the same level of articulation on the past 4th Doctors. Still, not bad. The Doctor also comes with his Sonic Screwdriver.
Davros is a great figure. I originally thought the four different Davros figures were just repaints of each other, but there is a remarkable amount of new tooling on this figure. The head sculpt is original to represent David Gooderson, as opposed to the Terry Molloy Davros from the“Revelation of the Daleks” set, including new wires and whatnot. Davros’ dashboard is also completely different from the previous set we looked at. The skirt is grey instead of black, but otherwise its pretty much the same, right down to the pop open service hatch added for the benefit of the “Resurrection” set. Davros comes with his computer sphere, which is appropriately the same piece used on the Source Manipulator from the “Keeper of Traken” set as the sphere was used in both props.                                     
And then there’s the Daleks. You get two standard Daleks from the episode, although one seems to be a higher rank than the other as he has a black stripe painted along his midsection and extra black paint around his bumper. Apart from that they’re identical. From my experience, CO traditionally has QC issues with the paintwork on their Daleks, but these two are just about perfect. Its ironic since the Daleks used in the episode were in terrible condition and practically falling apart. These guys look too new! The shade of grey does look a bit too light on them, but it might just be the lighting used on the episode. The ball joints on the gun and sucker arms were painted over, so I had to pop out the arms and carefully “crack” the joint by using a pen in the socket. Once done, the articulation is fine. These are definitely a couple of great additions to my Dalek armies.
I picked up this set for about $45 with shipping. It’s certainly not a bad deal for four figures. Chances are you long time collectors are getting tired of adding Tom Bakers to your collections, but even still I think the Davros and Daleks are still worth the price of admission. If you’re new to collecting Doctor Who figures, this one is a great starter set. The attention to detail in making Davros episode specific is impressive and if you’re in the market for some nice generic Daleks, these two certainly do the job nicely.
Mar 8 2012

Doctor Who: Cyberman Pandorica Guard by Character Options

It seems like an eternity since I’ve featured any Doctor Who figures based on the modern series, and that’s mostly because there haven’t been that many. Nonetheless I’ve been hankering for some NuWho figures and so I’ve started tracking down the “Series 5” inspired“Build The Pandorica” Wave. For the uninitiated, this was an assortment of Series 5 figures that originally came bundled with a Doctor Who audio CD adventure. The CD and case also doubled as a piece to the Pandorica. Honestly, I thought the CD was a pretty hokey idea, but when CO released the wave again, slightly cheaper and with non-CD Pandorica pieces that were sculpted and looked better, I new I’d get around to picking these up sooner or later. Did I mention they’re compatible with the Pandorica chair that was released last year? Well, they are!

Its going to take me a while to hunt down all of these figures, so I started off with the one I wanted the most. He’s the creepy, delapidated Cyberman that the Pandorica Alliance left behind to guard the Pandorica. The packaging is the same as we’ve been getting with all the Series 5 and 6 figures. You get a simple, generic cardback with the figure in a bubble. The Pandorica piece is behind the figure and the cardback shows one big Pandorica rather than other figures in the wave. You’ll also note the big sticker that points out the lack of a CD in the package. That’s pretty important because the back of the cards says there’s still a CD in there!
The coolest thing about this Cyberman is obviously the detatched open head. Its sculpted in the open position with the mummified skull inside. It comes detatched from the figure and you get a set of wire tentacles to plug into the neck hole if you want to display it off the Cyberman. The sculpt is pretty amazing, although I think it would have been cool if the skull was colored differently from the rest of the helmet. As it is its just all covered in the same rusty petina. Damn, this is a creepy sculpt. I like the missing right handle too. Naturally, you can unplug the wires and plug the head onto the Cyberman body.
The body itself is pretty well done too. Character Options could have gone for a cheap repaint here, but they actually introduced a lot of new tooling to the sculpt to show the damage. His chest armor is cracked, his arms are pitted.I guess my only complaint here is that it should be missing its left arm to be show accurate. But laying that aside, CO really went all out on this one.
The Pandorica wall plugs into the base of the Pandorica chair. If you don’t have the chair, you can get all six pieces to form the complete cube. I actually prefer the walls without the CD because they feature new sculpting and while you can tell they were designed to be CD cases, they still look more like the Pandorica walls and less like some dopey gimmick.
I picked up this figure for $13 shipped, which was a mighty fine deal. This Cybie was probably the most sought after figure of the wave. I suppose Kiss-o-gram Amy would be a close second, but she was previously available in the Christmas Adventure Set, so chances are a lot of the more dedicated collectors already had her. Some of the other figures in this assortment are going to be pretty hard to pony up for just to get the Pandorica piece, but I’ll get them all eventually.

Tomorrow, I’ll deliver the second in a one-two Doctor Who punch with a look at the “Destiny of the Daleks” set.
Jan 11 2012

Doctor Who: “Enemies of The Third Doctor” Collectors Set by Character Options

Ever since CO abandoned the release of Classic Who figures in single carded waves, we’ve been getting story-specific sets. That’s fine with me, but now CO has opted to go right for the jugular and bundle different enemies of a specific Doctor together. Personally, I’d rather get classic companions bundled with my baddies, but this formula works ok for me too. This one is based on three no-good-niks that have plagued The Doctor in his third incarnation. You get the original vintage style Auton that appeared in The Third Doctor’s inaugural episode, “Spearhead From Space.” You get Omega, who was admittedly a bastard, but as we learned in “The Three Doctors” he got a pretty raw deal. This was the first story where we learn that the Time Lords are kinda dicks. Then we get the showpiece of the set, the giant Drashig that appeared in that surrealest of episodes, “Carnival of Monsters.” You might say one of these turned up again later in another episode, but that was actually just a projection playing on Jo Grant’s fears and not a real Drashig so i doesn’t count. Ahem, sorry, nerdgasm.

Holy smokes, the box is huge. It obviously had to be big to hold that Drashig, but at the same time, there’s a lot of room in there for the other figures. As with “The Chase” set, there’s no backdrop insert, but that’s to be expected here since the figures all come from different episodes. Instead the tray is designed to mirror the diamond deco of the box and the overall effect is gorgeous. The figures are held in place with the string, which is easily clipped away to get at the goods.
Starting off with the Auton. You didn’t think you were going to get away with buying a CO figure set and not get some reuse, did you? HA! The Auton is a heavy reuse of the original Captain Jack Harkness figure, and I don’t care one bit because the end result looks fabulous. Basically the entire body is the same, save for some minor resculpting of buttons and a beltbuckle. Some have complained that the new scarf makes the neck look unnaturally elongated, but I think it adds to the figure’s creepiness. It is afterall an animated maniquin so it doesn’t have to be proportionally correct. I’m particularly happy with the paintwork on this figure. The deep blue of his outfit looks great and the silver detailwork on the buttons and belt buckle are immaculate. Whoever painted this figure should start doing the Dalek figures. Snap!
Thanks to the reuse of parts, the Auton’s articulation is a throwback to the older figures. The head rotates, the arms rotate at the shoulders, swivel at the wrists and have hinged elbows. The legs have universal movement at the hips and hinged knees. It’s not a hell of a lot, but in fairness, he is a friggin animated plastic mannquin so we don’t need a lot of poseability for him to lumber along and shoot people.
The modern Auton figures were a little disappointing as you merely pulled off their fingers to reveal a hole that was supposed to be their gun. It wasn’t really screen accurate. Here, you get an actual replacement hand with the fingers flipped down and the gun clearly sculpted. This is how it should have been done in the first place, CO! I don’t want to take away from the modern Autons, but to me this guy is much scarier, much cooler looking, and overall a better figure even with all the reuse of parts. I love him and I really wish CO would do a two-pack of these guys. I would definitely buy a couple more.
Next up, let’s check out Omega. I’ll admit I was a little leary about CO going with softgoods on this figure. Sure, we saw softgoods on the Sea Devils, but I thought the use of it here might look out of place in the line. I mean, why do softgoods on Omega’s robes and not the decayed Master figures? Well, I’m prepared to eat those words now, because this figure turned out to be visually stunning, mostly thanks to the shimmering whispy cloth robes. Even more surprising is that the glitter doesn’t come off in my hands when I play around with him. The sculpted parts of the figure look equally amazing. I’ve always loved the design of Omega’s mask and it looks outstanding here and the chunky sculpt and bronze finish make it look weighty and antiqued and oh, so cool.
Omega features all the new articulation seen in CO’s recent releases, including those wonderful new ball jointed shoulders. The only main difference here is that the swivel in the forearm is located higher up, rather than at the wrist. One cool little extra is that Omega’s head is removable. It’s a nice nod to the scene where Omega removed his helmet and there was nothing underneath. The head is attached with a heavy socket joint that lets the head rotate without pulling off too easly. CO, I adore this figure!
And then there’s the Drashig. It’s not exactly a figure, and yet it’s not the static piece that the Fendahleen was. It’s a hand puppet! Hell, I guess you could say its a prop replica since the original one in the series was some kind of puppet. This one looks as good as the one used in the series, too, although that’s not saying much since the Drashig were not the most convincing of Doctor Who monsters. In any event, this thing is sculpted in soft rubbery plastic with some very nice paintwork. It’s completely hollow, so you can just slip your hand right into it to work its toothy mouth. It’s big enough that it can scoop up other Doctor Who figures in its mouth. I was pretty sure that this thing was going to be designed for a kids hand and that I wasn’t going to be able to use it, but even my meaty paw can get in there to operate it without a problem.
As with “The Chase” set, this one retails at just under fifty bucks. Yes, its a premium, but these are action figures based off of a science fiction series in the 70’s from another country, so I’m willing to pay that premium. The Auton and Omega turned out great, and while I was a little leary about the Dreshig, I think it turned out to be a pretty cool item. I applaud CO for taking risks like this and producing unconventional things like the Drashig. Especially since the Drashig isn’t exactly a high profile Doctor Who monster. I just hope it pays off for them. Keep cranking them out, CO, and I’ll keep buying them. I do like this format, but I do hope you get back to doing some new companion bundles too. I just know you guys have that Jamie & Yeti set hiding back there somewhere.
Jan 11 2012

Doctor Who: “The Chase” Collectors Set by Character Options

Yessir, we’re back with more Classic Who figures, and this time Character Options is taking us all the way back to 1965, when Doctor Who audiences embarked on the extra long serial known as “The Chase.” It was a meandering, exciting and sometimes silly epic in which The Daleks built their own time machine and set about to hunt The TARDIS’ crew through time in an effort to, well what else? EXTERMINATE THEM!!!! This what you might call a cracker of an serial as it not only featured the return of The Doctor’s most popular enemies, but it also introduced The Mechanoids, a race of mechanical killing machines that were created by the writers with the express purpose of giving The Daleks a run for their money. In the end it was more of a stalemate through mutual destruction, but I’m sure it was a ratings draw nonetheless. The serial was also noteworthy for seeing the departure of The Doctor’s first two companions, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright. And hey, The Beatles even made a guest appearance… or sorts. It was also actually the first time that we saw Daleks in Manhatten. Suck on that nuWho! But enough with the history lessons. The fact that this set exists is giving me goosebumps so let’s get on it with it.

The set comes in the gorgeous new retro-styled deco with the appropriately classic series logo. As usual it’s a window box, but this time there isn’t a printed backdrop insert, but rather just a colored backdrop that matches the box deco. I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t have preferred a backdrop, but that’s fine. The set is a lot bigger than most of the other sets we’ve seen, mainly because The Mechanoid is pretty big by itself and when you toss a couple of Daleks into the mix, you need some serious real estate inside that package. As you can see, the set includes one Mechanoid and two Daleks. Let’s start with the Daleks.
The two Daleks are identical and are extremely close to the Daleks in the introductory episode and released by CO as a figure in the first of the two Dalek 3-packs way back when. In fact, these are practically identical to that figure except for the addition of the mesh wrap around and “shoulder slats” that have become common in pretty much all Daleks since. They even feature the same silver paint job with baby blue spheres that was used in the very first story. Next to the gun metal blue of the late 70’s Daleks, I think this is my favorite color scheme of them all. If you’ve collected your share of CO’s Dalek figures then you know the paintwork can be hit or miss and this pair of figures is a great example of that. One of them is absolutely perfect. The other one has a huge blue smudge right in the front middle of his apron.
Articulation on these guys is what you should expect by now. They roll around on three spinning wheels concealed beneath their aprons. Their sucker arm and gun arm are both secured with ball joints and you can pop them off if you want to create double sucker Daleks or double gun Daleks. Their heads turn 360-degrees and their eye stalks can look upward.
And then there’s The Mechanoid. Designed by humans to tame planets for colonization, these giant balls were more likely outfitted with their gizmos to be able to deforest areas or take care of hostile wildlife. But those gizmos work just as well in dealing out death to Dalek fools. If you were expecting a hollow rotocast blob, think again, as this is a nice hefty toy that outdoes the Daleks by rolling around on not three, but five wheels. Take that Daleks! It has a single stalk arm that houses a flame thrower, two pincer arms that fold out from its hemisphere and a sensor module that can rise and retract from the top of its globe. The flame thrower arm can be swapped out with an arm that doesn’t have the molded flame on it, if you prefer to display your Mechanoid in a more docile posture.
The cost of this battle in a box? Well, it’s right around the same fifty bucks that most of CO’s recent multi-figure packs are running. If you figure The Daleks at about fifteen bucks a piece and The Mechanoid at twenty, well… it still seems like a good chunk of change. On the other hand, this is easily the best army building pack that CO has put out. Even the old Dalek 3-packs each came with a Supreme that would have been redundant. This set gives you two awesome Daleks and the new Mechanoid and I gotta say, I’m really tempted to pick up a second one while I can. Unfortunately, with so many other Doctor Who sets coming up, I think I’d best save my monies. But even so, I can’t help but look at this set as pure loving fanservice. I probably first saw this serial about 25 years ago when I was 15 and I could never have dreamed to own these figures back then. And now I do! Life is awesome!
Jan 5 2012

Doctor Who: “The Keeper of Traken” Collectors Set by Character Options

The rain of Classic Who figure sets from CO continues and this time we’re checking out a decent sized set of three figures, plus some cool accessories, all based on the 4th Doctor story, “The Keeper of Traken.” Overall, I’ve always found this one to be a fairly mediocre episode, albeit heightened by the fact that it introduces companion Nyssa to the series and also sees the return of The Master as a major player and in his new incarnation as played by the late, great Anthony Ainley.

The set comes in an oblong window box with the new Classics retro-style deco and logo. Once again, let me say that I’m loving this new deco and the fact that we don’t have to see the 2005 logo on the Classics packaging anymore. The back of the box has a little synopsis of the story and features various stills featuring the characters. The set includes another variant of The 4th Doctor, another variant of the decayed Master, The Melkur, which is actually The Master’s TARDIS, and a grandfather clock, which is also actually The Master’s TARDIS. As usual, we get the figures mounted beside each other against a backdrop photo from the episode, in this case a shot of The Grove where both The Doctor’s and The Master’s TARDIS landed on Traken. Off to the side you can even see The Source chamber where The Keeper manifests, although it’s hidden behind the grandfather clock.
Let’s kick things off with The Doctor. Yes, it’s yet another 4th Doctor variant. I’ve already got three 4th Doctors in my collection and I’ve been pretty nitpicky about buying them so chances are a lot of people have more like five or six. Granted, this one is one of the better variants out there, as it features The Doctor in his vest and shirtsleeves and not his coat and scarf. The figure also features the new ball jointed shoulders so that’s a big bonus. I’m a lot more pleased with this figure than I thought I would be. He looks really good, except the paintwork on his eyes gives him a bit of a zombie-like expression. Since he uses the same head sculpt as the figures designed to wear the scarf, he also suffers from a bit of giraffe neck, but all in all not a bad figure at all. The Doctor comes with a scaled version of The Source manipulator as seen in the episode and a Sonic Screwdriver.
Next up is The Master in his second emaciated incarnation. A long while back I looked at the figure of the decaying Master from the episode“The Deadly Assassin” but his appearance (not to mention the actor) changed a bit to this appearance in “The Keeper of Traken.” The figure reuses just about everything from the last release (minus the Sash of Rassilon), but does feature a new head sculpt that really nails the way The Master looked in this episode. The robes are also darker this time around, being more of a proper black whereas the last release was a charcoal color. I probably could have gotten by without this version of The Master in my collection, but he’s still an excellent figure, so I’m not complaining.
The last figure we have is the Melkur, which is actually The Master’s TARDIS. I really had no idea what to expect from this one and was preparing myself for the likelihood that it would just be another static rotocast piece. As it turns out I was only partly right. The torso is rotocast, but the rest of the figure is regular molded plastic and Melkur has a nice amount of articulation for what was essentially a statue in the episode. The head swivels and the arms swivel at the shoulders. The legs actually have lateral movement at the hips too. This may not be the most exciting figure out there, but once again, CO really turned out a great sculpt of this very distinctive looking design.
Finally, you have the grandfather clock, which is as expected just a rotocast piece with stickers used for the detail in the clockface and front glass. This was the form The Master’s TARDIS took when he used it to trap Tremas and take over his body at the end of the story. I always thought it was kind of silly to have such an ordinary Earth clock be a part of the decor on a totally alien planet, but I try not to read too much into this stuff. In any event, it’s a good little replica of the on screen counterpart and its kind of cool that we now have three different versions of The Master’s TARDIS. Can a rotocast “Planet of Fire” column be far behind? At this point anything is possible.
As with most of the recent Collector Sets, this one retails for right around fifty bucks, and I’ll admit this one really is for the more hardcore collectors with deep pockets. Yes, this Doctor figure is a lot different than previous ones and has the extra articulation, but even the more casual collectors may be getting weary of 4th Doctor variants by now. The Master is also a variant of a previous release, and the grandfather clock and the Melkur, while very cool, probably aren’t considered “must haves” by a lot of people who are budgeting for the influx of so many new Doctor Who figures and toys. If you are on a budget, you may want to save your pennies for the sets that released this week. But if you have no problem pouring money into the deludge of awesome Doctor Who figures, you should like this set just fine.
Dec 30 2011

Doctor Who: “Image of the Fendahl” Collector Set

I warned y’all last week that there was a ton of Doctor Who Classics releases coming out from Character Options. I just got done covering the “Invasion of Time” and “Caves of Androzani” 2-Packs. Last week saw the release of the larger “Image of the Fendahl” and“Keeper of Traken” Collector Sets, and there’s three more coming out next week with the “Enemies of the 1st Doctor,” “Enemies of the 3rd Doctor,” and “The Chase” Collector Sets. Sheesh! Today we’re looking at this big boxed set based off the 4th Doctor story, “Image of the Fendahl”. I’ll be honest, this episode has never been one of my “go to” episodes when I’m looking for a Doctor Who to watch, but between the time I ordered this set and the time it got to my door (which was only two days thanks to Who North America’s amazing shipping and service), I made some time to rewatch it. It’s a solid episode, albeit pretty slow to get going.

If you own either of the Sontaran boxed sets, you’ll have an idea of the size of this set. The window style box is similar in design, but it incorporates the new retro deco and logo that we’ve been seeing on the recent Classics releases. I love the new look, as the use of the 2005 logo on the Classics toys never felt right to me. CO has been making it a practice to include printed stills from the episode sets as inserts to create a little display diorama in the box. They’ve slowly been getting more elaborate, and this one is really impressive with some 3D elements that include a table to support the accessories, and an open door to serve as a cardback for the Leela figure. What’s more, everything is secured in a way that you can easily get everything out without mangling the insert. On the downside, if you’re a mint-in-box collector, the adult Fendahleen completely obscures the skull and the embryo Fendahleen accessoreies in the backdrop.
Let’s start with Leela. Oh my. I spent decades wishing for a Leela figure and now I have three of them. It’s such a great time to be a Doctor Who fan! Some may cry foul at having to get yet another variant of the sexy warrior of the Sevateem, but I’m getting pretty full up on 4th Doctor figures, so I’m glad CO went with Leela instead. Granted, this version isn’t as new as the last one, it does feature some new sculpting and, as far as I’m concerned, it does represent the best Leela figure to date. From the neck down, this is the exact same figure we got in the “Invasion of Time” set. The head, however, is a new sculpt with her hair up, which finally gives us a Leela with workable neck articulation. I should also note that from a Quality Control standpoint, this figure is perfect. The paint is crisp and sharp, the joints are tight. It’s a far cry from the sloppy first release that felt more like a custom. As always, Leela comes with her little knife and a working sheath to store it in.
Since this is a reuse of the last Leela’s body, you get the exact same points of articulation. I’ll refrain from ticking them all off again, but suffice it to say it means you get the new awesome ball joints in the shoulders, and the same not-so-awesome ball joints in the hips. The hip joints feel a little tighter this time around, which means Leela’s legs don’t constantly pop off in my hand, but they’ll still come off if you play around with her long enough.
The adult Fendahleen is pretty damn big and dominates the set. If you haven’t seen the episode, it’s basically a giant worm that looks like something out of HP Lovecraft’s Cthulu mythos. As with some of the other set pieces CO has put out like the Master’s TARDIS and the Sontaran spaceships, the Fendahleen is rotocast, making it more of a statue than anything else, but given what it is, the figure lends itself well to this type of toy. That having been said, the sculpt and paintwork are both excellent. I tend to expect sculpting to be somewhat softer on rotocast statues, but this one is packed with textured detail and uses some additonal plastic pieces to add the cobra-like hood and the tendrils that spill out of the mouth. There is even a wee bit of articulation in the tail, as it will swivel on a cut joint.
The accessories include the skull and stand and an adorable little embryo Fendahleen. The amount of detail CO worked into the tiny skull is just ridiculous. It’s cast in an orange translucent plastic, but partially washed over with a grey paint spray. The result is a nice light piping effect if you hold it up to the light. They even carved the pentagram into the top of it. Amazing. The embryo Fendahleen is a tiny copy of the bigger version and represents my only real gripe with this set. Considering the price tag, would it have killed CO to throw three or four of these tiny Fendahleen in here? Maybe they’re planning a carded 20 pack like they did with the Cybermats and Adipose. Go ahead, CO, I’d buy it.
The set retails for about fifty bucks. If you willingly shelled out the fifty bucks for either (or both) of the Sontaran sets, than I think you’ll probably be happy with the value here. True, you got two figures in those sets, whereas here you just get Leela. But the rotocast Fendahleen’s sculpt and paintwork is a lot more impressive than the Sontaran ship and while I don’t want to knock CO’s willingness to give us a toy Sontaran spaceship, I think the Fendahleen is a much better display piece. It may not be a bargain, but I’m really thrilled with this set and it’s obvious that CO put a lot of love and care into it, from the packaging right down to the sculpt and paintwork. I suppose I could bitch about having to buy three Leela figures before getting one that I am totally satisfied with, but honestly, I probably would have bought all three variants anyway.