Warrior Alaya is the unfortunate Sillurian who got captured by the humans and was basically tortured to death with a taser gun by an angry mother. Yeah, the new Who can be pretty hardcore. This figure features a really nice sculpt that captures the character really well, particularly the detail in the head’s scales. Alaya’s tunic has sculpted plates, complete with paint apps showing off the intricacies of her stitched armor. Most of the outfit is grey with a nice wash to give it some depth. It’s possible the flesh tone could have been a lighter green, but now I’m really looking for things to nitpick.

Alaya comes with a nice little passel of accessories. She has her battle mask, which is sculpted in soft rubber and basically fits right over her face. I was worried it wasn’t going to stay in place, but it turns out that it holds on very well. It’s a nice little sculpt, painted in gloss silver and looks fantastic on the figure. Next up is her weapon, which is designed to be held in both hands. Like the mask, it’s got a glossy silver finish and a nice little sculpt. Alaya also comes wiht a flexible plastic chain that clips around her wrist. I appreciate the effort, but there’s not much you can do with this piece.

Moving on to General Restac. There’s obviously some reuse of parts between these two figures, which is probably why CO decided to go with two female Silurians. Still, when you get down to it, there are enough differences to make them each unique. Restac’s jacket is a resculpt of Alaya’s tunic, and it looks really nice. The head sculpt features the same intricately detailed scales, and some additional paint apps to give her skin more color. The legs are pretty much identical between the two figures, but the arms have a few differences. Restac is wearing gloves and she has coils around her wrists, whereas Alaya does not. Restac comes with the same gun as Alaya, but no other accessories.

Both figures feature the same level of articulation. Their heads turn; The arms have rotating sholders, swivels in the biceps and wrists and hinged elbows; The legs rotate and have lateral movement in the hips, hinged knees and swivels in the lower legs. Their tunics are each slit up the sides, so they don’t inhibit the leg articulation all that much.

I think these figures were worth waiting for, and now that I have these and CO has revealed an entire wave of Paradigm Daleks, I’m pretty much at closure for Series 5 toys. I still think it’s a shame that we got more than twice as many figures out of The Beast Below than we did the two-parter Silurian story, but such is life. I’ve also come to terms with the fact that Liz Ten isn’t going to happen, and since River and Rory should be prominantly featured in Series 6, I’ll just go on believeing that we’ll get them in one form or another next year. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, 2010 was an incredible year for Classics figures, but I think CO could have handled the Series 5 figures much better than they did.

Yep, it’s the same packaging we saw last time with the Dalek Strategist. I don’t have much to add here.

If you like your figures to look like statues, Series 5 was a good year for you. We got a stone Dalek, a stone Roman Auton and now one of these guys. Steven Moffat seems to have some kind of masonry fetish when it comes to Doctor Who adversaries. The only difference is that the Angel is sculpted to be made out of stone from the get-go, whereas the Dalek and the Roman were just repaints with some texture added. The detailing here is very nice and the overall effect of weathering and cracking and general wear comes across strong. Still, the face is my favorite part of the sculpt, mainly because it’s downright scary and captures the countenance of its screen counterpart perfectly.

The Angel has pretty good articulation, although the molded skirt does inhibit quite a bit of its leg movement. At least you can still make use of the hinged knees and swivels in the ankles. The arms rotate at the shoulders, have swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinged elbows. The head also rotates. I was surprised to see that the wings can flap a little bit too and can also be removed completely, if you want to depict your Angel in a further state of decay.

I think CO did a pretty nice job on this figure and it’s probably worth your money even if you have one of the original Angel figures. It’s an impressive sculpt and I’m glad I picked this one up, even though I had my doubts beforehand. Of course, if you have a real Weeping Angel fetish, you can also pick up the Looping Angel, which is supposed to be the one projected out of the security vid that tried to possess Amy. I’m told that one is available in two variants as well. Happy hunting… just don’t blink!

So which parts are new, and which parts have we seen before? The legs and the armored torso are both the same, although this new figure has a new soft plastic skirt and a completely resculpted belt. The new figure is also wearing a soft plastic removable cape, which further helps to distinguish him from the older figure. Both the sword and the dagger are the same, although they have been switched on the new figure so that the dagger is on the right and the sword is on the left. As with the original figure, both weapons are removable from their scabbards and can be held in his hands. The biceps are the same ones used on the old figure, although the forearms are new as the Underhenge Roman is wearing armor here. The headsculpt is completely new, although there are a lot of similarities between the two helmets. The new figure is clean shaven whereas the old one wore a beard.

The paint job on the new Roman also serves to distinguish it form the older one. The armor has a more tarnished, weathered look and both the scabbards and hilts of the weapons have new decos. One strange thing on the new figure is the dark color used on his legs, which doesn’t match the skintones on his face, hands or feet. It almost looks like he’s supposed to be wearing some kind of leggings, but I doubt that was the intent.

I don’t have nearly as much to say about the Petrified version of this figure. I was expecting it to just be a solidly grey repaint, but as it turns out, CO actually did some texture work on the figure to make it feel gritty like stone. The only place that isn’t covered with the petrified finish are the blades of his weapons. It’s a really cool and realistic effect and a nice example of CO going above and beyond. However, even as well as this figure is executed, it’s still something of a toss-aside for me. Apart from standing in the backdrop, the Petrified Autons didn’t feature at all in the storyline.

Both figures feature the exact same articulation. The head rotates. The arms rotate at the shoulders, have swivels in the bicep and wrist and hinged elbows. The legs have universal movement in the hips, swivels in the thighs and ankles, and hinged knees. The figure also swivels at the waist.

The Roman is an absolutely beautiful figure and should be a double treat if you’re just into historical figures. The attention to detail is great and he supplements the older Roman figure nicely. Still, I don’t think these two figures are going to persuade anyone to buy this set if you weren’t already convinced. I suppose you could just pretend the Roman is Rory, or perhaps try your mad custom skills at making him a Rory head. As for the reasons I think most people are going to buy this set? We’ll get to them in Part 3.

The set comes in a rediculoulsy long window box that lines all the figures up in a row, with the two big Daleks flanking each side. Seriously, just look at it standing next to CO’s big R/C Dalek.  

The package includes the blue backdrop seen in the Series 5 packaging as well as the Series 5 logo. The back panel shows a photo of each character from the episode and includes a little blurb. The front also notes that the Underhenge Dalek is an exclusive to this set. [Also worth pointing out, nowhere on the package is this set actually called the Underhenge Set. I’m just using that name for my own reference. -FF] The figures are secured in the tray with twisties, but overall the package is pretty collector friendly and you can return the figures to the box for storage or display if you so desire it.

As already mentioned, Amy Pond is a straight repack. I’ve already got her, but considering she sold out pretty fast at most e-tailers, and she tends to go for a premium on Ebay, I think it was a good idea for CO to repack her. She’s also going to be available again on a single card in one of the next upcoming figure assortments before the end of the year. I’ve already reviewed her, so I’m not going to go through it all again here. Suffice it to say she’s a really good sculpt and a very nice figure. The only real difference I can see between my single carded Amy and this one are some minor variations to the paint apps on her face. This Amy’s eyes are a little larger, which I think better fits the likeness. Apart from that, these two figures are identical.

The other figure in this set that we’ve seen issued before is the Sontaran General. This figure was originally released as General Staal and was available only as part of the Series 4 inspired Sontaran Strategem set and even though the Sontarans are a clone race, he features an entirely different headsculpt from the much more common single carded release of Sontaran Commander Skorr.

The headsculpt on General Skorr was really fantastic, but this sculpt blows him out of the water. It’s an overall incredible likeness and if you wanted General Staal and didn’t pick him up, now you can get him with this set. Besides having a new headsculpt, the General’s head can actually turn, which Skorr’s can’t. Some collectors have reported problems getting his helmet on, but mine fits on my figure with no worries, just like the Commander Skorr figure.

The General’s body is a complete reuse of Commander Skorr, some have reported the paint job having a more metallic finish to it, but I find the difference to be negligable at best. Unlike the other Sontarans, the General comes with a swagger stick instead of a rifle, which is fine by me, because I like to outfit my Sontarans with the chunky old Star Wars: Power of the Force 2 weapons, and I’ve got plenty of them to go around.

The Sontaran has great articulation. Apart from the already mentioned rotating head, he has 17 points. His arms rotate at the shoulders, have swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinges at the elbows. His legs have universal movement at the hips, swivels at the thighs, hinged knees and ball joints in the ankles. A common problem with the other Sontarans has been loose joints and feet that fall off. So far, the General here hasn’t taken any headers off the shelf, so it might not be an issue with this one. At least not one that I’ve seen yet.

Words cannot express how much I love these Sontaran figures, and that goes double for the General here.

So, both of these are great figures, but unless you’re a completist, I don’t think either of these figures make this set a “must have.” You can still get the Sontaran Strategem set for a pretty decent price online and as I mentioned, Amy will be available again. In Part 2, we’ll start looking at the brand new figures this set has to offer, beginning with the Roman Autons!!

Stop laughing, you sickies… that’s his tail!

The werewolf is a pretty big figure, although I suppose it depends a lot on how you display him. He can stand upright and in this stance he towers above most of the regular sized Who figures. But he has a lot of lupine characteristics to his structure, so he’s perfectly fine with standing on all fours too. Either way he looks great, although his head joint could have used a bit more upward movement to make his wolf-posture a little more convincing.

The sculpt is really excellent, although his exposed joints do interfere with the quality a bit. I do think there could have been a bit more fur sculpted on him, as he tends to have a smoother look to a lot of his skin. Still, I absolutely love the head sculpt. The detail on the mouth is amazing, complete with intricately detailed teeth and tongue with high gloss paint apps to round out the whole package. The appearance is genuinely viscious. There aren’t a lot of other paint apps on the figure, although you can see some bluish veins running across parts of his body.

His articulation is fantastic. The head is ball jointed. The arms have universal jointed shoulders, hinged elbows and hinged wrists. The legs are universal jointed at the hips and have two hinges, one in his knee and one again in his reverse doggie knee, and a third hinge in the ankles. He’s also got a ball joint in his waist. You can really get some great poses going with this guy.

The crazy thing about this figure is that he was a real pegwarmer. At least he would have been if Doctor Who figures could actually be found on pegs in this country. I’m not sure if it was because he was just a one-off monster or perhaps some people didn’t care for the episode. I realize he wouldn’t be as popular as a Dalek or Cyberman, but this is a figure that should have sold well on his merits alone.

Even though he’s an older figure (long in the tooth? HA!), he’s still available at a lot of Doctor Who figure e-tailers. I remember paying about $7.99 for mine, and you can probably do even better than that if you shop around. So you can really afford to buy a whole pack. And even if you aren’t a Doctor Who fan, this is still a really great generic Werewolf figure to have, if you happen to be in the market for one. And hey, it’s almost Halloween, so why wouldn’t you want a Werewolf figure?