River Song and Pandorica Chair - Figure Review - By Ryan Wigley

Evening all! This week, we'll take a look at one of the most divided sets of 2011, the San Diego Comic Con exclusive River Song figure complete with Pandorica chair.

First of all, let's start with River Song. Now, when Underground Toys first released the image of this, there was a divided opinion, some loved it, some hated it and some just couldn't care less or were reserving judgement. I'll be the first to admit I detested the set. Love River Song and Alex Kingston to bits, but good God not that set! The hair is a mile above the forehead and the likeness is terrible.

Fast forward two months and my birthday has just gone and one of my presents is this set! Looking at the figure in the box alone, I can tell the face has been painted perfectly, eyebrows done perfectly and the hair is pretty much perfect. So I take the figure out of the packaging and having not seen any images bar the promotional pictures beforehand, I'm well and truly shocked! It's great.

Anyway, back to the review. River's articulation is great, bar the lack of thigh articulation, I appreciate the fact River has a holster on her right leg means she wouldn't have any, but it would have been nice. Fairly new to the range is ball joints in the shoulder, which I love, a great addition! Looking at other lines, it can be very hit or miss, with the arms sticking out a fair bit, but it's done right in the Doctor Who line and I'm happy. Other than that, the head can't really move due to the sheepskin jacket, the elbows and knees bend and the boots swivel 360 degrees. Not a great deal of articulation, but it works.

The detailing on this figure is great! You may know that just after this set made its way to the UK, Character Options released a jacketless variant in the second wave of Series 6 figures (with the figure labelled as "Series 5 River Song"), I do own that figure, and I have to say it isn't a patch on this. Yes, you can move the belt, but the figure doesn't really do it for me compared to this variant. As I said, the main difference is the sheepskin jacket, which is a lovely addition, but what lets the figure down is the fact that the shirt and belt is a separate piece, just a flimsy bit of plastic, which I have to say is the negative of the figure. However, other than that slight niggle the figure is fabulous! 100% accurate and despite my original complaints, the headsculpt is spot on, just a bad bit of quality control on this product with badly applied paint and hair. My advice is to look for this figure in store because you want a lightly painted face that maintains the detail without it looking waxy and hair that doesn't hover above River's head.

I'm aware the Wave 2 River figure was revised and extra curls were added to the hair to disguise the massive gap. In my opinion, it makes it look worse and I'm glad the Pandorica set wasn't revised.

River has just the one accessory, her gun. Lovely little piece and unlike a lot of figures, it fits in the holster perfectly. I would've liked to see her scanner released with the figure, but you can't have everything.

Overall, the River figure is surprisingly impressive, bar the flimsy piece in between the jacket. I would have liked to have seen the Wave 2 figure with a jacket on it, but I can't help but feel it'd look a tad too big. I can't stress how great the head is, I do prefer the head released with the Astronaut River, but can't justify buying two new figures just to slap that head on the Pandorica Opens/Big Bang version!


Swiftly moving on to the Pandorica Chair. Yes, it is compatible with the Collect-And-Build Pandorica wave from late 2010/early 2011. I don't actually own and of the Pandorica wave figures, so I can't tell you how well it works, but based on images it looks great, especially with the moulded walls released in America!

The chair is of course designed to seat the Doctor. As you can see in the image above, it works really well, but I've seen a few people not place the figure on the chair properly, so it looks like he's hovering. I am surprised we didn't see a variant or re-release of the Doctor figure in this set, but at £22.99, it would have been taking the piss a little. After all, the big selling point of this set was River and she did remain exclusive to the set for a short period of time.

There isn't much to say about the Pandorica chair, it's just a lump of grey plastic! It's really nice, don't get me wrong, but there isn't a great deal to it. Sadly the paint applied is Matt like so it scratches and marks easily, however it is a permanent display piece for me so doesn't prove a massive problem. The lights on the chair and done with stickers and the ones on the floor are carefully painted. They do look a bit like the Turkish eye, but they're great!

The chair does have some moving bits, the handcuffs on it clip into place, as do the shoulder and waist things, meaning there is no escape for the Doctor it seems...

Overall, the chair is great, a lovely little display piece and looks even better with a small light inside and the Pandorica pieces in place!

Many have asked me would I prefer an Amy or a Rory figure with the set rather than River Song. I actually wouldn't have minded either three, would have still bought the set. It would have made some sense to put a Roman Rory figure in the set and keep River exclusive to Wave 2, but I'm not overly fussed, happy with the figure and happy with the set!

I'd personally give the set a 9/10, the quality control deducts a point from it. Now, it hasn't affected me seriously, but there is still elements of it in my set.

Thanks for reading, feel free to comment and I shall see you next time!

BifBangPow! Fourth Doctor Retro Figure by Ryan Wigley

Hello again and a Happy New Year! Yes, it has been a while, but the Frontier in Space team is back, and with a bang!

It's Friday the 6th January 2012 and today I'm going to take a look at the new line of retro figures created and produced by BiffBangPow!

Now, I must admit myself that the first promotional images of the line looked dreadful, absolutely ghastly. Actually, it wasn't until Jon (http://jonwesleyhuff.com/) posted his excellent pictures on Gallifrey Base of the products that the line begun to appeal to myself and others. It is worth noting that Jon has kindly allowed us to use his fabulous images for this review. Thanks Jon! Anyway, now to kick start this review!

Firstly, we shall start off with the figures articulation. Head spins around 360 degrees, along with the hands. The elbows and knees bend, and I'm not quite sure what to make of the arms! They're attached to the body simply by a metal hook and some elastic band, which severely limits articulation. Now, I normally wouldn't mind, but the fact that the right arm wasn't even attached when I received the figure earlier today! However, it was sorted out pretty quickly and I don't have anymore problems.

Next the costume. Consists of the leather coudroy jacket, trousers, shirt, waistcoat, green tie, long stripy scarf and I suppose the floppy hat and shoes! Now I love the coudroy jacket, not quite sure what the material is, but it feels a bit like suede. Unfortunately, the jacket appears to have stained the scarf, shirt and cheek a tiny bit, but it isn't noticeable. It seems the tie wrap around the neck of the figure when packaged has taken most of the dye on it, so that's fine. The trousers and shirt are just pretty plain, nothing exceptional, but still nice, it's worth noting the waistcoat is attached to the shirt, and isn't a separate piece. The tie is however, and is just a piece of elastic with material dangling down, nothing much but doesn't take away from the effect. The Fourth Doctor's shoes are removable and made out of plastic, they don't slip off easily, but if you do decide to take them off, they go back of straight away.

You may have noticed I left the scarf until last, as I've decided to tie it in with accessories, and goodness me, it's wonderful! Just a piece of coloured material folded together and stitched with tassels on the end, sounds boring but it really is great! Because of this, you can either go with the early Fourth Doctor era and have the scarf looped around the neck once, or replicate the Season 14/15 promo poster and have one end of the scarf over the shoulder, or even have it in a Season 17 style. Along with his scarf, the Fourth Doctor comes packed with his famous floppy hat! Mixed reviews about this, as BifBangPow! have elected to have sculpted hair rather than rooted hair, meaning the hat has had to be sculpted around the hair. Sadly, it just doesn't work. The hat just looks oversized and massive, and if I am honest it looks more like Indiana Jones's fedora than the floppy hat the Fourth Doctor often wore. I am expecting a hatted variant of this figure in the future, possibly from stories like The Pyramids of Mars or The Seeds of Doom. Along with the scarf and hat is the good Doctor's trusty gadget - The Sonic Screwdriver! I have been trying to steer away with comparisons to Character Options's 5" figure line, but due to the slightly larger scale, more details are allowed, and the Sonic Screwdriver has these extra details. From the bigger, "bullet" style emitter to the dent on the handle like the prop. Now of course, this cannot be done on Character's products, but at a larger scale it works well with BifBangPow!'s attempt. If I was to add one more accessory, it would be the jelly babies, something that is a neglected in a lot of Fourth Doctor figures!

I have been overly positive of this figure and for good reasons, this line has completely changed my view on "doll" type items, with my major gripe being the articulation, but I think it is down to the fact that the sculpt used is what is typically used across other Mego and BifBangPow! styled products.

Now, these aren't perfect, but who honestly expects them to be? They're snazzy and funky retro products, reminiscent of the Denys Fisher figures of the 70's and 80's, but brought more to the modern day. As you can see above, there is more to the wave than the Fourth Doctor, along with him are other famous baddies from his era - Field Major Styre (The Sontaran Experiment), Cyber Leader (Revenge of the Cybermen) and The Master (The Deadly Assassin), and that is just Wave 1! Wave 2 is on the way in Spring, with the Doctor's feisty companion, Leela, and more baddies - Sutekh (The Pyramids of Mars), Morbius (The Brain of Morbius) and Scaroth (City of Death).

BifBangPow! don't only have the Fourth Doctor license, they have the entire of Classic Doctor Who and NuWho! Who knows what Wave 3 will bring? The Tenth Doctor, Harry Sullivan, Omega and Raston Warrior Robot perhaps?

To finish off, a thoroughly recommended figure from a thoroughly recommended line. If this isn't enough to turn you into a doll/action figure type fan, then I don't know what will! Overall, I'd give this figure a well earned 9/10, not perfect as I have said, with the articulation and hat letting it down mainly, but not enough to deduct a mark each. Each figure is only limited to 3,000 pieces each (Mine was 2245), so grab 'em while you can!

Many thanks for reading and all images are courtesy of Jon (http://jonwesleyhuff.com/)! We hope to see you again for another review in the near future!