Tag Archives: doctor who

Aug 29 2011

Doctor Who: Silent (With Open Mouth) by Character Options

Once again, I find myself a little underwhelmed by CO’s choices of figures for the current series of Who and that’s why you aren’t likely to see all the figures in the recent waves featured here on FigureFan. I know, it’s a crazy concept that I’m cherry picking Doctor Who figures, but I really don’t need an 11th Doctor in Stetson, or the 11th Doctor in Straight Jacket, of Young Amelia Pond. Seriously CO? No Black Spot Pirates? No Kovarian? And still no Rory? Jeez. Nonetheless, there are some worthy and good looking figures in the mix and I was pretty excited to pick up one of super creepy Silents in their new action figure form.

      
The figure comes packaged in the same style as the Series 5 figures. I still really dig these cards. They look great and their much easier to get into than the clamshells used prior to the Series 5 package changes. The back panel shows just how weak this wave of figures is. The five figures include: Two Silents, Young Amelia who isn’t even from Series 6 [Ok, fair enough, she turned up in the most recent episode. -FF], 11th Doctor in his Stetson and Nephew the Ood. I’m only planning to pick up Nephew and a couple more Silents. Luckily the next wave looks a little better.
So, the one thing I was iffy about when I first saw the pics of The Silent figure was the proportions. The Silents just didn’t look this tall and oddly proportioned on the screen, but now that I have the figure in hand, I really don’t care if it isn’t accurate because the elongated proportions of the figure looks so damn creepy and unsettling that I’m completely won over. The sculpt is simple enough, as the body is just a wrinkled black suit, but the bublous head is just awesome and I’m very happy with the open mouth variant. The skin tone looks more like the color of silly puddy, whereas I remember the screen versions being more grey, but accurate or not, it looks fine.
The Silent’s articulation includes the new ball jointed shoulders that I first saw used with River Song and Leela. In addition to the ball jointed shoulders, the arms feature swivel cuts in the biceps and wrists and hinges in the elbows. The legs feature universal movement in the hips, swivel cuts in the thighs, and hinges in the knees. The neck has a swivel cut, but the head really barely turns at all.
After a huge buildup (“Silence will fall!”) I can’t say The Silents have turned out to be the best Who villains introduced in the new series, but then we haven’t seen the last of them yet, so I’ll reserve final judgement for a little while longer. They were, however, definitely creepy and the figure conveys every bit of that creepiness. Are they screen accurate? Not entirely, but I’m still so very happy with this figure, that I will definitely be buying the other variant, as well as a couple more.
Aug 2 2011

Doctor Who: River Song with The Pandorica Chair by Character Options

In addition to satisfying the Classic Whovians with their Leela figure, CO also delivered on a modern companion at the SDCC this year. Alas, no, not Rory, but the enigmatic River Song. Yes, we’ve had a River figure before, way back from her debut episode Silence in the Library, but she’s been back on the show quite a bit since and a new figure was certainly overdue. Much to some collectors’ chagrin, CO decided that instead of her being a single carded release, she would be bundled with the chair from The Pandorica. So is the set worthwhile? Let’s take a look…

The set comes in a nice window box with the 11th Doctor’s logo and a blue swirly spacey-waycey deco. The Pandorica chair and base takes up a good portion of the package with River standing off beside it. I like the overall packaging, but it’s kind of an odd display since the chair seems out of place without its walls (more on that later) and it’s just empty with River standing next to it. I don’t suppose I should complain, because CO could have just as easily repacked another 11th Doctor figure in the chair and charged us another $10. So, yeah, I’ll shut up now. I’ve been saving a lot of the packaging from my Doctor Who sets, but I’m not compelled to keep this one.

Let’s start off with River, as there’s a lot to like and a few things to dislike about the figure. From the neck down I’ll say she’s pretty darn marvelous. She’s sculpted with the garb she wore throughout most of The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang episodes, and it’s a great choice, as it’s a sort of generic space swashbuckling outfit. She has a sculpted jacket, a belt with some pouches, and a working holster on her leg. While I still wouldn’t mind getting a River in her “church” fatigues from The Time of Angels, I think if there’s a chance we only get one River figure, than this is the one I would want.

It’s the head sculpt that’s really caused a lot of fuss. I think the likeness is ok, although some have taken issue over her smiling quite so much. I don’t have a big problem with it. The likeness is there, the paint is clean, and hey, she tends to smile a lot on the show, so no biggie. And then there’s the hair. CO opted to sculpt the hair separately from the head, so what you get is a sort of hair helmet effect. I’m hoping they did this to make it easier to produce some variants, but it does create an unfortunate gap between head and hairline. I do think the figure looks better in hand than it did in the initial photos, but there’s no doubt that this method of sculpt isn’t optimal.

What is pretty optimal is the articulation. As with Leela, River has the additional lateral movement in the shoulders, which is new to the Doctor Who figure line. She also keeps the sturdier and better designed swivel/hinge joints in the hips that give her legs a good range of movement. Other articulation includes swivel cuts in the neck, biceps, wrists, and above the boots; And hinges in the elbows and knees. She also comes with her blaster gun.

And then there’s the Pandorica chair, a piece that I’m still pretty mixed on. The chair itself is nicely done and includes articulated restraints for the wrists and torso and shoulders that will fit many Doctor Who figures. The problem is that it looks very incomplete without the walls. As it turns out the walls that were issued with each figure in the wave based on The Pandorica Opens work with this piece, so if you want it complete you have to buy those figures too. Problem is, it wasn’t exactly a “must-own” assortment of figures, but rather a wave stacked with variants and re-issues. The original release of the figures came with walls that doubled as CD holders for CDs with audio adventures. CO has since re-released the wave without the CDs and with walls that are simply sculpted plastic. Either way, you really need at least a few of these walls to make your Pandorica chair complete, and even then, they aren’t designed to open or slide apart or anything.

No doubt, I would have preferred to get River as a single carded figure. The Pandorica chair is ok, but I didn’t feel that it was missing from my collection, and since I don’t have the walls for it, it’s even less relevant. It’s probably the only piece in my Doctor Who collection that will be relegated to a box in the bottomless pit of my toy closet rather than be displayed. On the other hand, the whole set was only about $30, so it could have been worse. If you weren’t able to pick this up, you shouldn’t pay a premium for it. I think we’ll be seeing River again in some variant or another, and possibly bundled with something (or someone) better. On the other hand, if you did pick up the Pandorica wave and have the walls, than the value of this set increases quite a bit.

Jul 31 2011

Doctor Who: Leela by Character Options

Character Options kept us waiting a long time to find out what the big Doctor Who Classics reveal was going to be at the SDCC this year. Turned out I wasn’t disappointed as it was everybody’s favorite sexy savage and my favorite companion of all time, Leela. Not only was she tops on my list of figures I wanted to be produced, but she comes to us introducing a brand new level of articulation for the Doctor Who line.

There are two important things worth noting about the packaging. First off, it’s brand new and obviously designed expressly for Classics figures. You get the retro-style logo, which fits much better than the 2005 logo that CO has been using on the Classics stuff. Some may note that the packaging bears a passing resemblance to the cardbacks used by DAPOL on their craptacular Doctor Who figures from way back when. The other thing worth noting is that Leela isn’t a two-pack. It’s been some time since we’ve seen a newly sculpted Classics figure released without a repack figure or something else packed in to inflate the price. Could all of this point to a new strategy or push for the Classics line? Well, I can hope. Apart from all that, the figure still comes sealed in a clamshell with an illustrated insert inside. The back panel of the insert features a brief synopsis of the episode, The Face of Evil. Overall, the presentation here is really nice, although it’s worth noting that there is no indication anywhere that this release is an SDCC Exclusive.

I wasn’t sure about this sculpt when I saw the first pictures. Now that I have the figure in hand, I think it’s much better than I gave it credit for. It’s not quite one hundred percent percent Louise Jameson to me, but it’s close enough. Of course, I’m talking about the face here, the rest of the body and outfit is totally on target. There have been a lot of QC issues reported with this figure, particularly where the paint is concerned. Mine is overall decent, but Leela does have a couple of scratches on her arms and legs. I’m still deciding whether or not they’re even worth fixing. Either way, she isn’t up to the QC standards I’ve seen in most of my Doctor Who figures, and that’s a shame.

As mentioned, Leela features brand new articulation, which results in a lot of good, and a little bit of bad. On the bad side, CO went with a new style of ball joint for the hips. Nice idea, in theory, but I pulled one of her legs off just trying to remove her from the package, and I know that I wasn’t alone. Sure, they’re ball joints and they just pop right back on, but having them come off while posing her is more than a little annoying. Considering the old style hip joints gave us better articulation than these new ball joints, I don’t think this was a worthy or even logical trade off at all.

On the other hand, the new hinge/pin ball joint used for the shoulders, is much better than the standard swivel we’ve been getting in the past. You can debate whether Leela or River Song is the first to introduce this, but Leela’s the first of the two I’m looking at so it’s new to me. The introduction of lateral movement to the shoulders in the Doctor Who line is a most welcome addition to the line’s articulation. Leela also features swivel cuts in the neck, waist, biceps, wrists, and just above the boots. She also has hinged elbows and knees. It’s worth noting, however, that her sculpted hair does interfere with her neck articulation.

As a fierce warrior, Leela certainly loved her weapons and CO packed her with a mini arsenal. She comes with a crossbow with an arrow, a Tesh gun, and of course her trusty knife. What? No Janus Thorn? Probably too small to sculpt. [Actually, on closer examination, I’m pretty sure it’s sculpted in a pouch on her belt. – FF] The crossbow is nicely sculpted, although it seems rather oversized compared to the one she carried in the episode. The arrow is also kind of useless and easy to lose. The gun, on the other hand, is pretty spot on and a very welcome accessory. Her knife if good too, and it fits nicely into the sheath on her belt.

Leela the action figure has about 25 years of my anticipation to live up to, so it’s only understandable that she may fall a little short. Unfortunately, the QC issues with the figure’s hip joints and scarring to the flesh paint are issues that make the figure feel a bit more like a custom than a professionally finished product. I applaud the addition of the lateral arm movement in the shoulder hips, but CO really needs to deepsix these new ball joints in the hips and go back to the solid swivel and hinge system they’ve been using. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it… and definitely don’t replace it with something worse. Knowing CO, I’m betting she’ll turn up again in a repack of some sort, so there’s always a good chance they’ll clean up some of the QC issues on a later release. Until then, I’m still happy to finally have a Leela figure in my collection, flaws and all.
Jul 6 2011

Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver by Character Options

I’ve slowly been building my collection of Sonic Screwdrivers from Character Options, starting with the Classic ones and working my way up. I’ve looked at the 3rd and 4th Doctor’s trusty audible tools here already, now its time to jump ahead and take a look at the 10th Doctor’s sonic. Yes, technically, this could be considered the 9th or 10th Doctor’s screwdriver, but in this case, it’s been reissued in a very specific package to commemorate the regeneration of Doctor number 10 into Doctor number 11. And the 11th Doctor did afterall still carry it throughout most of his premier episode “The Eleventh Hour” so the packaging is pretty appropriate.

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The aforementioned package is similar to the two Classic sonic releases as it’s basically a plastic clamshell with an illustrated insert. You practically need your own real sonic screwdriver to get into it, although a pair of scissors or a boxcutter works fine too. The illustrated insert is very attractive, with a foil image of both the 10th and 11th Doctors flanking an image of the exploding TARDIS. The back panel has a blurb about the device along with a helpful schematic to show you how to put the batteries inside, which is not as easy as you might suspect and will require a small philips screwdriver. Oh, the irony. You really need to take a good deal of the toy apart and be careful not to loose the cap for the thumb lever. Yes, the batteries come mounted beside the screwdriver in the package, so there’s no Try Me feature as found in many electronic toys these days.

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There’s a lot to love about this sonic, but there’s also a fair number of things that bug me about it, so let’s get those out of the way first. For starters, this one doubles as a ballpoint pen with two interchangeable tips. One writes in normal ink, and the other writes in invisible UV ink that can only be read when the light is directed at it. That’s cool, I guess, but not really relevant to the device at hand. Kids may have fun with hit, but it doesn’t do anything for me. Fortunately, the pen is hidden in the butt of the screwdriver, so it doesn’t detract from its qualities as a toy-prop, but it does occasionally fall off. If you’re like me and don’t care about the pen gimmick, this problem is easily solved with a couple dabs of Gorilla Glue.

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The other thing that bugs me a bit about this sonic is the way the buttons and electronics are situated. You can activate the emitter with the device extended or retracted, which is fine. But, there’s a separate slider to extend the device, which means there’s no fluid way to extend it and activate it at the same time. You have to extend it, take your thumb off the lever and reposition it on another button. Yes, there are two activation buttons, one for when the emitter is extended and one for when its retracted. It makes the operation overly clumsy. Lastly, the sound chip in this one is nowhere near as loud as the ones found in the Classic sonic screwdrivers. Even with brand new batteries, you have to strain to hear it.

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But this little guy isn’t all bad, not by a long shot. In fact, it really looks fantastic. The textured grip looks suitably old and the parts above and below the grip have a shiny silver finish that make for a pretty convincing faux metal look. When the device is extended, the exposed part of the shaft is transparent with a cool twisting core inside just like the real prop. The emitter tip glows a nice bright purplish-blue, which is vibrant enough to almost make up for the muffled sound chip. Most importantly, the sonic is nicely sized when compared to the onscreen prop. I was seriously afraid it would be oversized like a children’s toy, but it actually feels comfortable in my hand and properly scaled.

Despite being a lot more complex than the Classic sonic toys by CO, and doubling as a pen, this version of the 10th Doctor’s screwdriver tends to retail about five bucks less than the Classic ones. It might be because the Classic ones are considered more of a niche item, or maybe I just lucked out and got this one on sale, but either way at just under $20, it’s easy to overlook some of this toy-prop’s shortcomings and overall I’m very happy with the purchase.

Jun 28 2011

Doctor Who: Character Building TARDIS Mini Set by Character Options

It’s been a little while since I featured any Lego sets here. That hasn’t been an intentional slight on Lego, just a reflection of what’s been available on the shelves. Fortunately, I’ve been able to get a little bit of my Lego fix this month with the first of the Doctor Who themed Lego-compatible building sets by Character Options. While it’s not an official Lego product, it is still basically Doctor Who Lego and that’s about the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.

The set comes in a little box similar in size to Lego’s own smaller assortment sets in the $10 range. The box is illustrated with the completed version of what you’re getting inside, along with an actual size shot of the Doctor minifig and the Series 5-6 style Doctor Who logo. Open up the box and you spill out two baggies of bricks, two individually bagged minifigs of The 11th Doctor and Amy Pond, an instruction booklet, a sticker sheet, and an illustrated insert that makes up the interior of the TARDIS. As always, let’s start with the minifigs…

Surprisingly, the minifigs come pre-assembled in their baggies, but they can each break down into seven pieces, which is about the same as most of Lego’s minifigs. Also unlike Lego’s minifigs, these feature character specific sculpts, rather than relying more on illustrated generic pieces. Each figure is aggressively cute and The Doctor even comes with a Sonic Screwdriver accessory. Still, these little time travelers look like they have more in common with the popular Imaginext line of figures than Legos, which is cool as it gives them a certain personality all their own.

The TARDIS itself is comprised of 45 pieces, several of which are pretty specific to this model. The front doors are on hinges so that they can open in or out, while the rest of the TARDIS walls are each one sculpted piece. What’s really awesome is the included illustrated insert that makes the TARDIS look like it actually has its interior, something that CO didn’t bother doing with their Classic 5-inch scale TARDIS. Virtually all the details are conveyed via stickers, and CO was generous enough to include extras in case you screw up or one gets damaged.

As I mentioned above, this set is about on par with Lego’s ten dollar sets in terms of size and complexity. It is, however, an import to us Yanks, so chances are you’re going to spend a lot more than the MSRP. I paid a whopping $23 for this set (shipping included), which is obviously a lot more than was intended. It’s a lot to pay for what you get, but considering what it is, I think it was justified. I’m not willing to pay as much for the other two mini sets, but this is the TARDIS afterall, so I was willing to splurge.

Jun 13 2011

Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver by Character Options

Given the mileage they get out of their molds, it was pretty inevitable that once Character Options released the first classic Sonic Screwdriver that more would follow. The first release was based off of The Third Doctor’s trusty device, and now CO has followed suit with the Fourth Doctor’s version. Let’s see what we got…

The packaging is the same design used for the Third Doctor’s screwdriver with a different printed insert to suit the Fourth Doctor and a new lenticular collectible card. The back panel has a blurb about the screwdriver and the Doctor himself. There’s no “Try Me” feature or anything and the batteries actually come mounted in the tray beside the toy. Yes, you will need a small phillips head screwdriver to put the batteries in the scewdriver. I believe that’s called irony. While we’re on the subject, you’ll also need a good pair of scissors or a razor blade to get into the ironclad clamshell of a package.

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As you’ve probably already guessed, this Sonic Screwdriver is just a very minor resculpt of the Third Doctor’s issue. In fact the only difference in the sculpt is the elongted bit on the back of the head and the fact that the head sits a little higher in the shaft. Again, the head of the screwdriver is made of soft bendy rubber to prevent it from snapping off. As a result what really separates this one from the previous release is the color scheme. The yellow spiral stripe is gone as is the simulated duct tape wrapped around the bottom of the shaft. What you get is a mostly silver piece with some black accents and the red on the instrument’s head. While the Third Doctor’s version is certainly pretty screen accurate, I’m guessing this one will be the more desireable for lacking the yellow striping. The sounds are activated by pulling down on the shaft and the sound chip is identical to the Third Doctor version. Pull it down a little bit to hear the first sound and pull it down all the way to hear the one with more of a warble to it.

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The Fourth Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver retails for around $25. As with the first release, I think $20 would have been a more reasonable price, but I’m not going to complain. I’ve wanted one of these for a long, long time, and it sure beats paying the $200+ dollars for the metal prop versions that some companies have put out. I tend to be a bigger Jon Pertwee fan than Tom Baker (although I love them both) and yet I still prefer this Sonic Screwdriver over the one used by Pertwee’s Doctor. Sure, if you have the first release, this one is really redundant, but hey, if you’re a Who fan, you really should own both anyway.

May 30 2011

Doctor Who: “The Time Monster” Master and TARDIS by Character Options

In case you haven’t noticed, Character Options is striving to get a lot of mileage out of their classic figure sculpts. They’re doing this by making us buy the same figures or toys over and over again to get a new piece in our collections. Just look at the four Davros sets or the fact that they’re putting out another Sontaran set with the ship, and you’ll see what I mean. This Time Monster set is yet another example, where I’m buying a figure that I already own, in this case The Master, just to get his TARDIS and a few little accessories. Does this piss me off? Nope. Not in the slightest. If this is what CO needs to do to get a return on their investment and keep making figures, that’s fine by me. I’ve waited so long for these figures and toys and I’m so happy that CO is making them, I’ll gladly keep forking over the dough as long as CO keeps making them.

The package is a window box with the same deco that’s been used for sets like the Vengeance on Varos or The Sontaran Experiment. You get a blue deco with the 2005 series logo. The front of the package features a photo of Roger Delgado as The Master along with a shot of his TARDIS as it appeared in the episode. The back panel has a nice synopsis of the episode, The Time Monster, and more photos from the show. One of my favorite things about this set is the cardboard insert that is illustrated with roundels from inside the TARDIS and can be taken out and used as a backdrop to display the figures with. No doubt this backdrop will go a long way for folks looking to do custom TARDIS interiors.

I don’t have much to say about The Master, as he’s the exact same figure that was released with the Claws of Axos set. He’s a fantastic figure with a wonderful likeness of Roger Delgado, but I’ve got nothing new to say here. Feel free to take a look at my review of The Claws of Axosset for more on the figure itself.

The TARDIS is designed to look like a 1970’s era computer bank. Much to The Doctor’s chagrin, The Master’s TARDIS had a fully functional Chameleon Circuit. It’s sculpted in hollow plastic and feels kind of like a dog’s chewtoy. The sculpt and the paint apps are simple enough, but don’t expect anything else out of it other than a prop. It doesn’t open, nothing moves on it, it’s just a display piece for decoration. Some may find that disappointing, but then there’s this counter-argument. “Holy shit, they actually have a toy based on The Masters TARDIS from The Time Monster.” Who the hell thought we’d ever see something like this? Yeah, I’m willing to be pretty forgiving here.

There are also three accessories included in the set. First, you get The Master’s Tissue Compression Eliminator, which is the same one issued with The Claws of Axos Master. Next up, you get the Crystal of Kronos, which is actually a really nice little scaled replica of the artifact from the episode. Lastly, you get the Time Sensor that The Doctor built, which is also a pretty nice piece.

If you missed out on picking up The Claws of Axos set, and you’re in the market for this Master figure, this set is a nice pick-up. It’s especially a nice set if you passed on the Axos set out of bitterness that the Axon figure was actually just a repainted Krynoid. On the other hand, if you already have The Master in your collection, this set is by no means a must have. The TARDIS is cool enough and the accessories are nice, but it hardly justifies buying the set. On the other hand, with a retail of about $25-30, picking this one up isn’t going to break your bank like collecting all the Davros sets will. Personally, I’m trying to support this line as much as possible, so buying this set was a no brainer for me.

Apr 24 2011

Doctor Who: 10 Random Thoughts About The Impossible Astronaut

I had every intention of getting another Doctor Who figure review in to round out the week, but alcohol unavoidable distractions tripped me up. As a result, I thought I’d just punctuate the week with some random thoughts about the Series Six premier episode, The Impossible Astronaut. Overall, I enjoyed it, or at least I started enjoying it about 10 minutes into it. I didn’t want to do a review proper, since it’s one story and I haven’t seen the second part yet. So here we go…

  • Moffat, knock it off with “killing” and then “unkilling” the Doctor or dipping into the “OMG, he’s going to regenerate, oh wait, no he’s not” pool. You cheapen things so much when you do this, and it’s a terrible way to start a Series.
  • Matt Smith is still amazing as The Doctor.
  • So these guys are The Silence? Really? Seems kind of anticlimactic.
  • Rory is so awesome. For the love of god, give him more lines and don’t kill him off again.
  • How is William Morgan Sheppard still alive and looking so good? He’s been old in every movie I’ve seen him in going back for what seems like decades.
  • I thoroughly enjoy when the writers work the whole Doctor who? line into the script, but it should be used sparingly and never… ever… twice in one episode.
  • OMG, they mentioned Star Trek in Doctor Who… THREE TIMES!!!
  • I really hope this story arc is wrapped up in this two parter. I’m not interested enough to see it go on for all of Series Six.
  • Who is River Song? I’m thoroughly convinced that River Song is somehow a physical manifestation of the TARDIS. I know I’m not the only one to put forth this theory, but at this point it’s the only possibility that makes sense to me any more.
  • Ugh, it’s going to be a really long week.

Oh, and Happy Easter!!!

Apr 23 2011

Doctor Who: The Supreme Dalek by Character Options

Rumor has it that the Daleks may be a no-show in Series Six, and I’m perfectly fine with that. It’s not that I don’t love me some Daleks, but the writers always run the risk of using them just for the sake of using them, and not because they have a good story to tell. I think it’s cool that they have other stories to tell and aren’t willing to drag in the Daleks if they don’t fit the plans. Or maybe they’re just trying to figure out a good way to nix the rather unpopular New Paradigm Dalek designs. Either way, I thought I’d toss in some Dalek loving this weekend with a look at one of the more unique Exterminators from CO’s Doctor Who line. He’s The Supreme Dalek as seen in the Series Four finale,Journey’s End. As has been the case throughout Who history, the Supreme Dalek has been a special variation on the regular flavor and this particular grand pooba of the Daleks is no different.

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I was pretty fond of the way this guy looked in the actual episode. Granted, he didn’t do a hell of a lot apart from gloat, temporarily exterminate Captain Jack Harkness, and try to melt down the TARDIS and Donna in a giant neutrino fondue pot. When I got the actual figure in hand, however, I wasn’t quite so impressed as in toy form I thought the design looked more like an overzealos fan’s kitbash. Time has mellowed me a bit on the figure, though, and I’ve warmed up to it quite a bit.

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The Supreme stands slightly taller than your average Dalek, and that added height mostly comes from the added ring between his shoulder slats and his neck. The apron and bumper portion are the same as any old Dalek, although the arm sockets are more blocky and pronounced. His shoulder slats are largetly concealed by the four pylons that are added at each of the cardinal direction points. What’s their purpose? Who knows? They’re accompanied by more pronounced gold discs surrounding his neck area. The head is fairly similar to the regular Daleks, only with his ear lights on platforms and a third ear light in the back. This third ear light bugs me about as much as the future Enterprise in Star Trek The Next Generation just having an extra warp nacelle glued onto it. It’s gratuitous and added just for the purpose of making him look different and more advanced. Hey, at least he didn’t have a flashlight duct-taped to his eyestalk like the Supreme from Planet of the Daleks, eh?

The Supreme has the same articulation features as the other Daleks. He has ball joints for his sucker and blaster arms, he rolls along on three wheels, the front of which rotates 360 degrees, his head dome can rotate and his eye stalk can look up.

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Getting past the extra bits glued on, there is undoubtedly a lot of nice detail in this guy. The red and gold color scheme looks really good too and there isn’t a lot of paint slop or bleeding on my figure, which has traditionally been a problem with some of the Daleks figures. For all my whining about kitbashing, the truth is this figure features a fair amount of geuinely new tooling to make the differences work and it certainly wasn’t hammered out on the cheap.

Unlike most Doctor Who figures, The Supreme Dalek was ridiculously tough for me to get at first. It was initially offered at many retailers for $20, which is pretty high for a non-exclusive, non-limited figure. Nonetheless, hesitation got the better of me and I missed out. I was lucky enough to eventually track him down and at the same price and you can bet I was quick to pull the trigger this time.

Apr 22 2011

Doctor Who: The Empress of the Racnoss by Character Options

In the last year or so, Character Options has become a lot more selective about how many Doctor Who characters get made into figures. I can think of at least ten figures that should have been made from Series Five alone and yet never were. But it wasn’t always like that. CO used to happily make figures of almost anyone and anything appearing in an episode. Remember yesterday’s feature with the Space Pig? But, if you ever needed a good example of how bat-shit crazy CO was about making Doctor Who figures a few years back, well here it is. The Empress of the Racnoss!!!

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Featured in only one episode, and only appearing for a small portion of that episode, The Empress of the Racnoss was certainly an awesome looking alien menace. Part spider, part alien hell-bitch, she probably scared the poop out of any little kids that watched The Runaway Bride.Unfortunately, she’s also the only memorable thing about that episode, [Ok, so the TARDIS car chase sequence was pretty cool too. -FF] and as far as a nemesis for The Doctor is concerned, she was pretty lame. She stood there, made a bunch of really stupid puns that seemed completely out of place for such an alien creature and then ultimately either burned to death or got drowned, or maybe both, I can’t really remember. But it’s not the fact that The Empress got her own figure that’s so amazing, it’s how utterly gigantic this figure is, that really impresses. The packaging is long gone, but suffice it to say, she came in one pretty damn big window box.

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Out of the package, The Empress is impressive on every level, but let’s start with the size. The torso portion is the same size as any regularDoctor Who figure, so when you tack a proportionally sized spider body onto it, well, you get the idea of how big this figure is. When standing fully upright, you can easily stand a regular Doctor Who figure under her. No, she’s not quite to scale from the show, but I’ve got no complaints.

The sculpt and paintwork on this figure are both gorgeous. The headsculpt is one of CO’s best, right down to the multiple eyes and the finely detailed teeth. She has a pair of locust-like arms hanging off of her shoulders, in addition to the eight spider legs protruding from her giant body. The body is mostly hollow so the figure isn’t terribly heavy, and she’s got a huge web spinner on her butt.

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The Empress’ legs are each fully articulated at the body and again at one of the mid joints. Her torso and head can swivel and her arms rotate at the shoulder. The leg joints are all tight, so the figure can easily stand up on her legs with no worries.

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When The Empress figure was first released she came at a pretty hefty sum. Most e-tailers were selling her for $39.99. Now, I’m not saying that it wasn’t worth it, as this is a really nice figure, but it’s admittedly a lot to pay for a fairly inconsequential villain from a fairly poor episode. It wasn’t Fear Her kind of bad, but it’s The Runaway Bride is definitely not one of my go-to episodes when I’m looking for my Who fix. It didn’t take long for prices to get slashed, though, and nowadays you can still find this figure at some online retailers for about twenty bucks, and she’s definitely worth that. In fact, I really can’t recommend her enough. It’s just too bad she didn’t come with a dozen or so little baby Racnoss. I do, however, thank CO for not giving her a voice chip.

[It may be Friday, but Doctor Who week is going to cruise on through the weekend to properly celebrate tomorrow’s premier of The Impossible Astronaut and the kick off of Series Six. -FF]