Hidily ho!
I figured to try something different tonight and do a toy review.
Tonight I am going to review Character Options Cult of Skaro w/Genesis Arc toy set.
Let's begin:
1) Packaging
This box is quite large. If you want to know how large.... remember the boxes used for Energon Optimus Prime, Armada Optimus Prime, Enegon Megatron, RID Ultra Magnus....you get the idea. The Box has orange, red, and yellow swirls and worals all over it. On the front is a picture of the 4 Daleks that make the Cult of Skaro, the right panel has a pic of the genesis arc w/ description of it, the rear panel has another pic and description as well as a description of the Cult of Skaro itself, along with a few pictures from the episode these guys appeared in. Now the window shows the toys of course.....the right side has the 3 gold Daleks and one half of the Genesis Arc. The left half is actually a seprate compartment, devided from the right, with the black dalek and the second half of the Genesis Arc. Also, each compartment of the package has a distinctive background.....the left half with the black dalek has a sorta metal background, like a space ship or something. The Right half has a sky view of a city, most likely London, recreating the scene of the Genesis Arc spewing out Daleks.....in fact, one of the Gold Daleks in placed in the half of the Genesis Arc to mimic that. Overall, a nice, big box with dice details. Oh, and another nice feature....ONLY TWO TWIST-TIES HOLD THE DALEKS DOWN ONTO THE PACKAGE, AND ONE FOR EACH HALF OF THE GENESIS ARC......you can either untie them, or just use sme nail clippers.....bit either way, it should not take you any more than 5 minutes to get all the Daleks and the Genesis Arc out of the box....... you taking notes on this,
Hasbro?
Now with the box out of the way, let's go on to the actual toys now.
2) The Toys:
A: The Gensis Arc
Let's go over the Genesis Arc first, since it's the biggest item of the set.
The Genesis Arc in the story was a prison ship made by the Timelords to imprison millions of Daleks, based on Tardis technology. The Arc is a bit not accurate, since it is larger than the one seen on screen. The reason for this was because the Genesis Arc, which opens in 2 pieces, was made to house a single Dalek, so the Arc had to be enlarged somewhat in order to fit the Dalek. The detailing on the Arc is nice, with little vents, rivits, and controls being seen. It is cast in a black plastic and painted with a coppery paintjob. Also, a blackwash was used on the Arc as well, bringing out the molded details quite nicely. There are 8 clear spheres on each side of the Arc, which can be used with the Daleks' sucker arms, serving as the controls of the Arc. Inside the Arc, one sees a small clear rack on one side. This holds can hold a Dalek eye stick, sucker arm and gun arm, because you need to remove these bits in order to fit the Dalek inside.
The Genesis Arc is a nicely made accsessory for the Daleks. I myself see this as a possible 'Dalek-Tardis' like in
"The Chase".
B: The Daleks
Now all 4 Daleks, Dalek Sec ( the Black Leader ), Dalek Thay, Dalek Caan, and Dalek Jast; are all the same mold....Dalek Thay is intact....not missing the panels as the "Damaged Thay" had. The Daleks are 5 inches tall and each one of them has an ensignia to tell who is who. The ensignia is a simplistic drawing of a Dalek head....each of the 3 gold Daleks has a tick-mark inside the Dalek head drawing to identify each....Jast has a tick-mark on the top, Caan has it in the center, and the Thay has one on the bottom. Sec has no tick-mark.
The gold Daleks are not totallly gold. They have a mostly copper color on the body, gold on the semi-spheres, slats, and 'waist band'. The eyestick, sucker arm, and gun arm ( all cast in a somewhat flexible plastic ) are silver. The eyeball, the actual sucker cup, and the mesh between the Dalek neck rings are black. The disks behind the eyeball are see through ( which leads me to believe the arms might be cast in see through plastic as well ), and the eyeball has a spot of light blue on the front to mimic the glow of the blue light in the eyes on screen. The 'bumper' at the bottom is dark green, with gold rivets. The ball joints that the arms are connected to are black. The ear lights are see through as well. The ensignias they have, under the eyestick, are in white. I always found it odd that gold was choosen to be used for the standard Daleks....since in the classic stories, we have had more than one occasion where a leader Dalek was gold, so it's sorta funny.
Dalek Sec is the leader Dalek of the cult. The body is flat black, while the semi-spheres, slats, shoulders, neck rings and head dome are in a shiny jet black finish. The rivets on the shoulder slats are silver. The bumper is also flat black with silver rivets. The arms and eye stalk, with see through disks behind the eye, are silver. The ear lights are see through also. The ensignia under the eye stick is white. Sec looks very slick and menacing with his paintjob.....though the 3 gold Daleks are menacing themselves.
These Daleks seem to be based on the the Dalek with Mutant reveal mold from the first wave of the Doctor Who toys because that toy had a removable breast plate and had the flesh and blood Dalek inside, and the Cult of Skaro set all show these breast plates and the seems where they attach....though they do not come off....it's possible they were perminently attached somehow, or the sculptors made a new mold of the orignal toy with the breast plate attached.....it's pretty interesting. Now all the Dalek figures here have 4 points of articulation: The head dome on a swivel joint, the eye stick on a hindge joint, and both arms on ball/socket joints. Now this might not sound like much, but anyone who seen Doctor Who and Daleks, knows the Daleks only had this much to begin with ( though the new series shows they have rotating midsections, acting like a tank turret ), so don't be expecting the Daleks to have the same articulation as you see Marvel super hero figures, otherwise I'll sick Jast on you. :p
The figures are quite light in weight, yet seem to be quite sturdy, even the flexible plastic making the arms and eye stick are rather stiff, really. A cute bit I seen on the figures is that on the bottom of each Dalek, the year 1963 is stamped on. This might confuse the younger viewers or the dumb-ass joe six packs out there, but why 1963 is on the figures is cause of two reasons: 1: Doctor Who first aired on November of 1963. 2: The first time the Daleks appeared was in the second story of Doctor Who, also aired in 1963, in December that year.
Each Dalek has 3 wheels on on the bottom, 2 wheels on an axel on the rear, while a single wheel, on a swivel joint, is on the front, concealed nicely by the bumper. The Dalek can roll freely on flat surfaces with no problem.
There are a few things I would have liked to see, though. The eye sticks on TV could lower past parallel, the figures' eyesticks can go only as low as parallel. The gun sticks can not go all the way to parallel, being on a slight, upward angle at the lowest point possible. It would have been nice if the sucker arms were telescoping like on TV, but they would most likely be fragile if that were the case. Also, I would have liked the ear lights to be of some transparent color like on the series, and the edges of the lights to be painted like they are on screen. Sec suffers from slightly bad paint apps.....a small bit of black is slightly sloppy on the end of the sucker cup. Also, Sec's eye is is not fully painted, the part on mine is missing a little bit on the lower corner. One of the gold Daleks has gold paint ment for the neck rings 'bleeding' onto the black mesh of the neck. But little tidbits like these are not a big problem, and can be fixed with a spot of paint. Also, the bottom halves of the Daleks, the part with the semispheres, is a little wider than the actual Dalek props in the series. The head domes are not as tall as the domes of the props, though Character Options have remade the Dalek molds, from scratch, to make a much more accurate mold in the form of the "Crucible Dalek" in
The Stolen Earth giftset and the Doctor Who episode of the same name.
Overall, I am quite pleased the with Cult of Skaro/Genesis Arc set. The Daleks are very well detailed, mostly accurate to their on-screen counter parts, and well made. They are in scaled with the other Doctor figues of the line, and these Daleks are light years ahead of the mishaped Daleks from Louis Marx of the 1960's and 1970's, as well as the decent, but still inaccurate Dapol Daleks from the late 1980's and early 1990's. This would make a great gift or addition to a Doctor Who fan, a collector or anyone who likes unusual looking figures. And even if a kid who knows nothing about Doctor Who or the Daleks, I am sure he or she would love them, I mean what kid would not like a bunch of killer alien cyborg figures?
My final score:
and 1/2 Mr. Green's out of 5.
Here's a youtube video review I found of the Skaro set if you need a visual aid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0SbJ5J-fxUHere's a review, by the same fellow, of the Dalek with Mutant Reveal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfUeN2M447E
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