Monday 13 July 2015

New 5" Doctor Who Figures on the Horizon from Underground Toys

Well another San Diego Comic Con has come and gone. If you're like me you were probably waiting to see trailers from Doctor Who, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad and everyone's favorite Merc with a Mouth, Deadpool. Of course SDCC wouldn't be the same without a mad amount of awesome toys on display, and Mattel did us proud with their massive Snake Mountain playset for Masters of the Universe Classics. However, one company who we were not anticipating seeing anything new from was Underground Toys, who had a variety of new 5" scale (sorry, 5.5" scale) Doctor Who toys on display.

Firstly they come in new fancy window box packaging complete with 'Collector Series' on the front in a new colour scheme. This get's a thumbs up from me, a much needed refresh to the blue and grey retro packaging. Secondly we have the figures themselves, four different variants of the Twelfth Doctor with different colour shirts. The figure appears to be the same head sculpt as the 3.75" figure, which sadly means the neutral expression doesn't give us Capaldi's trademark arched eyebrows. The white shirted variant also does not include his cardigan. We're off to a good start! The Doctor does appear in this way in a brief blink and you'll miss it scene, but otherwise it just seems like a major gaff. There's also a more accurate purple shirt, black and white polka dot version, and an unseen black version.


Next we have Clara Oswald, so we don't have to worry about using Oswin to double for her. This figure appears to be a straight up repaint of Oswin, a blue dress, new shoes and no utility belt. Does Clara ever wear this ensemble? No. She wears something sort of similar in The Name of the Doctor, but that actually had a pattern on it. Not wishing to split hairs about inaccuracy, but that's probably as good as it's ever going to get. It put's me in the mind of Dapol's Mel being released in pink and blue, the latter being an incorrect sculpt and missing polka dots.

Finally we have the Curator. Underground knew we wanted all the incarnations of the Doctor, and they're giving them to us! Does that mean we can have a Valeyard now? No? Pfff, fine, have it your own way. This came totally out of left field. No one in their right mind would have ever thought we'd get an old man Tom Baker figure, but here he is. Again, he's not 100% accurate, the shirt's missing the cravat and the collar seems quite high, possibly to hide his missing cravat, but he does look pretty darned good. He also comes packaged with the painting of Gallifrey Falls No More, which is in fact lenticular! Very nice! The interior of the packaging also features the inside of the gallery, AKA the Curator's TARDIS.

There's no word on where, when or how much these figures will be, but there's already talk of £20-30 for the Curator set and probably £20 for the standard figures. There's also some talk of the various Twelfth Doctor variants being exclusive to particular stores, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

As a little aside, but also part of this new collector's range, Al Dewar released some lovely pictures of the Twelfth (yes, no long Eleventh) Doctor's Flight Control TARDIS exclusive to Toys R Us in the UK. No word on price yet, but with all the bells and whistles of the original, including a new light up door panel, would suggest £20-30.

4 comments:

  1. I think I'll pass on most of these, I'm getting past caring by now. Obviously I want a neutral faced Capaldi and a closed sonic screwdriver accessory. But the rest... meh, my collection can go without them. The Clara figure is a lazy repaint and the Curator... well, his shirt looks horrible, it's like a pullover or something.

    I have a feeling the DW figures by Character Options/Underground Toys are getting worse, as well as less frequent, no matter the scale, it takes six months to find out about a new wave of 3.75 inch figures, or whatever, and a lot of figures are repaints. They don't release much, but when they do they milk the repaintability too much and it all feels... cheap and lazy. I wonder if 5'' Capaldi will be the last new figure I ever buy, or if they'll ever make something else...

    ...Is that 3.75'' (Night of the) Eighth Doctor still happening?

    Anyway, I'm too worried about the 6 inch Star Wars Black Series right now, especially the SDCC exclusive First Order Stormtrooper... the prices are crazy on Ebay... meanwhile, Time of the Doctor sets are still up for grabs. Something tells me I can take my time to get a Twelfth Doctor in 5 inch, it won't just go away...

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  2. (*slaps myself* Now I don't even know if I sent one comment or two...)

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  3. I get them milking their molds for all that they're worth, since new sculpts are expensive, but seriously? Add a jacket with new arm sculpts, tweak the paint, and I think you can manage a TOTD outfit out of Clara! You still reuse the molds, but make yourselves not look so cheap! I just wish I could get some more 3.75 inch news...

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  4. Is the twelfth doctor going to be online like on amazon after its released

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