Review: Character Building. Doctor Who TARDIS Mini Set.

[Peppermint_M]

Well, I went shopping in the city yesterday and as per my routine I popped into Forbidden Planet. After an initial pass of the Doctor Who merchandise I was disappointed not to find the new building toys from Character, but as luck would have it, as I paused by the shelf load of Square Enix figures I noticed the familiar pattern of studs printed on a Box. There at the top of the shelf the other side was two different Doctor Who building sets. I decided to pick up the TARDIS. It cost me £9.99.

A little background first. Character have had the license for Doctor Who merchandise since 2005. They have had several successful runs of both classic and current characters in five inch action figures and with the popularity of building toys, these sets were a logical step.

Now to reveal the box.

A nice display of the set, the figures and an actual size picture for Eleven. Parts count sits alongside the web address and company Logo. The three C’s of Collectable, Constructible and Compatible under the branch brand. You can also notice the BBC logo and hiding in the corner a Cobi logo. As soon as I saw that I knew I needn’t worry over brick quality, their product is impeccable.

The back has a nice little blurb about the TARDIS and its current occupants. Top and sides are just the usual little bits thrown on to cover card.

The contents: 4 bags, one for each figure, one of plain brick and plate, the other two have the special door parts and panels. There is a large sheet of stickers and a small card insert of the typical view inside the TARDIS through and open door (achieved on set with painted canvas behind the doors).

A closer look at the contents of the bag. As you can see from the second photo, they colour is a perfect match for TLG dark blue.

The special parts: Three panels textured for TARDIS sides, the doors and the hinge plates, the doors slot into small holes that are through the plates. The roof is one large piece and the lamp sticks onto the top, providing an unrivalled opportunity to drill through and hollow the lamp for an LED light.

The build was simple enough, stacking 1x1 bricks into columns and slotting the panels into place. The final result is a pleasing an accurate TARDIS to play with.

Onto the figures. As you can see, they are more detailed than minifigs but do not compromise the aesthetic of smaller figures by avoiding the tiny action figure style that Mega Brands uses. The hands and arms do not readily come off, nor do the legs separate. In comparison to minifigs they are about the same size. The sonic screwdriver is fabulous and accurate, it also fits perfectly into the hands of a minifig.

As you can see, both the official Character figures and my slight custom Lego figures look fine with the TARDIS.

Overall this set was great, well worth the price and great for any fan of the good Doctor.

Hope you enjoyed this review, soon I hope to be posting figure reviews of the soon to be in shops trading figure collection.

[simonjedi]

I had no idea these were out now, Thanks for the review! Will defiantly be buying them all.

There at the top of the shelf the other side was two different Doctor Who building sets. I decided to pick up the TARDIS. It cost me £9.99.[/Quote]

What was the other set?

[Jargo]

This and the progenitor set are out.

[Peppermint_M]

Yeah, Daleks and such. I was much more interested in the TARDIS, after this they need to make something really amazing else I will only be focusing on the figures and battlepacks.

[Plissken]

I received this set today and started to make pictures for a review. Then I found yours. Great work on it. I love the screwdriver

25 The Other Doctor by plisskeneb, on Flickr

I hope it is OK that I post pictures in your Thread.

[Solscud007]

My brother was a huge fan of Dr. Who. I shall have to get this. I don't like the figures but the tardis looks great.

Here is my late brother when we went to London for xmas in 2001. He was stationed at SHAPE in Mons, Belgium.

This is a real police box. Dont think it is still there though according to my friends in London.

[Wily Manc]

Got this set a couple of weeks ago, and I'm pretty happy with it. The light doesn't fit on the top of the Tardis on the set I bought, which is a minor irritation, but it looks good and fits in great with my Lego village. Love the figures - some of the other ones out there are great, especially the Daleks

I'm really excited by this range - Lego would never have touched Dr Who so I don't think it takes anything away from Lego. I wonder how popular they are. Can't wait to see more sets, especially the full set of 11 doctors! Woohoo!

[Praiter Yed]

I've seen the adverts on TV for this and pretty much dismissed it as cheap sh*te. Your review has made the TARDIS a little more tempting. These figures lack the charm of the Minifig though .

[Mr Man]

Horribly enough the best looking ones are the daleks which are the worstest pieces of *mumblemumblemumblemumbel* in the show.

Thanks for the little review Peppermint_M.

Edited May 23, 2011 by Mr Man

[Peppermint_M]

I will review the figures! I am just trying to grab one of each first. Luck so far includes the rather rare Timey Wimey blue shirted Doctor.

[gmask1]

Got my sets (Angels, Daleks and TARDIS diaorama sets) yesterday in the mail (thanks eBay :) )

Overall, they aren't bad at all (my bias: lifelong DW fan), and I absolutely plan to buy more!

I've listed some of my thoughts in the wall of text below, for those that are interested...

Favorite: Probably the Dalek Projenitor set - it has the most detailing (most pieces), and the white Dalek is a unique minifig for the time being.

Least Favorite: Probably the TARDIS - it takes a lot of effort to line up all the 1x1 bricks just right. More importantly to me (probably silly for everyone else), it's a bit too tall for minifigs.

Most important (to me):

- The bricks look and feel like LEGO quality, much more so than I could have expected them to be for a competitor.

Stickers and inclusions:

- The sticker sheets for the TARDIS and the Angels sets had extra copies of the stickers, so that if you mess up you can rip it off and use a new one.

- The stickers are exactly the right dimensions for whatever they are being applied to. The only exception was for the TARDIS - the windows and door stickers were more LEGO-like and smaller than the space they fit into; the Angels and Projenitor sets were spot on, with no space around the sticker.

- I think it was the Angel set, but one of the sticker sheets had some little 'DW' logo stickers that had nothing to do with the set itself, but are pretty cool anyway.

- There's a cardboard insert for the TARDIS, so that when the doors open you can see the console room!

- The TARDIS really benefits from the moulded side walls, doors and roof. I always wondered how you could do a TARDIS at minifig scale and make it look more interesting than a blue box. This is it!

Minifigs:

- The minifigs are only about a millimeter taller than the LEGO minifigs. The torso is the culprit, though the neckless head makes the Doctor look like Jay Leno.

- I like the way that the minifigs can swivel at the waist (there's just the one pin connecting the legs to the torso, rather than two with LEGO). I wonder if they could work themselves loose...

- The minifigs are packaged pre-built. I like to build the minifigs :)

Bricks:

- The bricks are occasionally not quite spot on for size. The 1x1 tiles in the Projenitor set didn't fit flush against the tiles beside them - there are small gaps. For the TARDIS set, the custom moulded side wall pieces are a fraction short.

- Some of the bricks have marks on them, presumably from the plastic frames they were punched out of. You can see some of them in the review images with the completed TARDIS - there's a light blue mark on some of the 1x1 bricks.

Instructions:

- The instruction books don't actually tell you when/where to apply the stickers. It's pretty obvious for most of them, but there are points during the build where it might have been easier to get them straight.

- Bricks used in previous steps are greyed out, so that only the pieces used in the current step have their correct colors. Initially, I thought it was quite useful, but it became more difficult when trying to line up bricks.

- The instructions occasionally complete two layers of bricks in one step. Because previous steps are greyed out, this is do-able but can be a bit confusing when bricks overlap on the page.

- The instructions don't always have call-outs to the bricks used in each step. This is normally apparent in steps with sub-assemblies, and probably due to a lack of space.

[Plastic Nurak]

I like this themed-clone, but I fear that if I could buy one of these I risk to turn into a Dalek .

[simonjedi]

My friend brought me this for my birthday yesterday. It's a nice little set. The doors are a bit fiddly to get out if they get pushed inwards, but thats it really. Probably going to pick up the Dalek Set, 11's TARDIS interior when it's released and the 11 Doctors megapack.

I have 4 of the packaged figures as well. (Amy, Smiler, Silurian and Cyberman.) The Cyberman helmet fits minifigures quite well even though it's slightly too big. I'm annoyed that a Raggedy Doctor figure is a rare figure of 500.

[Dfenz]

Coincidentally, I picked up one of these last weekend and was pleasntly surprised. I normally don't cross over to the dark side of clone brands but this was far too tempting especially as it was also very very easy to 'feel' for daleks in the polybags nearby. I found the doors a bit fidgety to assemble (alignment with the holes) but eventually got it together. Also, the week before the recent Sun newspaper Lego promotion in the UK the Mirror newspaper had the Doctor Who minifigures as giveaways.

[gmask1]

Coincidentally, I picked up one of these last weekend and was pleasntly surprised. I normally don't cross over to the dark side of clone brands but this was far too tempting especially as it was also very very easy to 'feel' for daleks in the polybags nearby. I found the doors a bit fidgety to assemble (alignment with the holes) but eventually got it together. Also, the week before the recent Sun newspaper Lego promotion in the UK the Mirror newspaper had the Doctor Who minifigures as giveaways.

Those giveaways appear (at least for the time being) to be variants that you can't get elsewhere. I've spied two of them (the Doctor with blue shirt and jacket, and the yellow Dalek) in future sets, but not the variant Amy minifig.

Hopefully the sets will start appearing in stores downunder in the coming months; until then, eBay it is!

[Peppermint_M]

I've seen what is possbily a variant on eBay, Amy wearing red gloves and possibly a different outfit.

[Dunjohn]

The Daily Mirror Amy has red gloves and wears black leggings (no skirt), a grey cardigan over a pink pullover, and a red scarf. My local Smyths had a few "please take one" baskets of them a week or two ago. They mustn't have been popular, so now I have a small army of yellow Daleks and one or two of the others.

[Darth Hagrid]

Wow, thanks for the review! I've been waiting for one!

[The Crazy One]

My brother was a huge fan of Dr. Who. I shall have to get this. I don't like the figures but the tardis looks great.

Here is my late brother when we went to London for xmas in 2001. He was stationed at SHAPE in Mons, Belgium.

This is a real police box. Dont think it is still there though according to my friends in London.

Oh it still is. I live just down the road. It's still outside Earls Court station.

On the Doctor Who sets, I just got some of the figure packs, and felt out two Daleks. I think they're awesome. It's great to have moulded Daleks compatible with Lego.

[Hewman]

Thanks for the review, after reading it I was on the fence about buying it. They've only just made it to Australia, and I looked at one at the ABC shop here, it felt very light in the box, then I looked at the price, $30 (that's a smidge under 20 pounds, although we pay less sales tax, so it's really the equivalent to over 20 pounds). All other sets were equally as insanely priced here, the "big" one was $180. Apologies if this is not quite in the right thread. I couldn't find one that perfectly matched what I had to say and I didn't think it was worth starting a new thread over.