Month: August 2007

Categories
ToyBox

Doctor Who figure followup

(Apologies to those who just discovered my blog over the course of CGE and are now asking “WTF? What’s all this geeky action figure stuff all of a sudden?” You folks’ll just have to deal. And I hope you like baby and kitty pics.)

The very recent announcement that Character Options will be supplementing its series of Doctor Who toys based on the new series with a compatible line of heroes and villains from the original series has sent me on one of my Hypothetical Toy Binges. I’ve been known to do this for various properties that simply don’t have action figures, to try to tax my brain to come up with a lineup for a viable line of toys. (Remind me sometime to show you my dream list of nonexistent Blake’s 7 and Babylon 5 figures.) Hey, I’ve worked in marketing many times – I do mental exercises like this. … Read more

Categories
ToyBox

This dovetails nicely with my plan to spend less money on silly stuff

From Outpost Gallifrey:

Character Options is to release a range of classic-era figures.

To be launched next spring, in association with BBC Worldwide, the five-inch figures will initially feature detailed replicas of classic Doctors, plus a number of monsters.

Jon Diver, the joint managing director of Character Group, said: “The resounding success of the Doctor Who TV series is made up of both new and existing Doctor Who fans.

“We have reacted to public demand and will be producing a range which greatly enhances the depth and quality of our existing line.

“The classic licence will broaden the collectability and enhance the position of the brand.”

Can we say hot diggity damn? You can bet your bottom dollar (and/or pound) that Tom Baker and Paul McGann will be the first figures out of the gate, but so long as they at least fill out the first eight Doctors, and give me some Zygons and Sontarans to put next to the Judoon and the Face of Boe, I’ll be pretty happy. I think they ought to do some companions too, but…I’ll admit that probably needs to wait until they see if anyone buys the much more obvious choices. And then maybe, just maybe, they can give me that McGann TARDIS playset I’ve been dreaming of. (Until then, I’ll be more than happy with the incongruous hilarity of putting Pertwee and Colin Baker in the new series console room.)

Mat told me at CGE that he’d be happy to keep an eye open in the UK for any figures I’m missing. Heh. If only he’d known… 😆… Read more

Categories
Television & Movies

Wow, this is actually a good sign

At lunchtime today, I went to Hastings to look for Babylon 5: The Lost Tales on DVD. They were sold out! Let me recap that string of improbabilities for you:

  1. A new direct-to-DVD Babylon 5 movie
  2. …sold out
  3. …in Fort Smith, Arkansas

😯 To further my list of seven impossible things by lunchtime, I stumbled upon a Doctor Who merchandise rack that I didn’t realize was there, and picked up two new action figures that I didn’t know were out (much less in the U.S.), Martha Jones and the bloody space rhino (they’ll look great next to the Face of Boe). (I also snuck out with The Hand Of Fear on DVD, which I had been keeping an eye out for.) I then had no choice but to go to Best Buy. There was a time, about ten years ago, when I couldn’t walk into Best Buy without dropping $50 at least. These days, their selection has become so watered down into mainstream pablum that I have a hard time finding $50 of things I’d like to buy there over the course of an entire year. In this case, though, they got not quite $20 out of me, as they had three copies of The Lost Tales left. I didn’t realize until I opened up the box that there was a Best Buy exclusive comic inside, written by JMS himself. Quite nice artwork, but story-wise more sentimental and symbolic than meaty at only six pages.

Okay, I promise, I promise, I’ll stop spending money…starting…now.… Read more

Categories
...And Little E Makes 3 Critters Gaming

You are not the ones to make me fly, and therefore are obviously not the ones to take me home

The trip home was fun. My barely-long-enough-to-reach-my-connecting-flight layover in Denver turned into what was nearly an all-night stay. The plane that normally makes the XNA-Denver run and back again was diverted to Colorado Springs due to severe storms…and then vanished off the radar. Well, that’s a good sign. I still don’t know what finally happened with that. Finally, they got us on a plane, some plane, any plane to get us out of there. We went around the aforementioned nasty weather at fairly close range and it was spectacular – moonlight illuminating the tops of the clouds, which were just boiling with lightning. Breathtaking stuff. There was a woman about two seats behind me who didn’t agree, however, though that may or may not have had something to do with how many bloody marys she’d had.

I touched down at XNA at around one in the morning, and was groggy enough that I took my time driving home. Of course the kitties were happy to see me, though I’m worried about Xena – she’s been eating very little, though I don’t know how much of that is the heat and how much of it is her missing her favorite human. I’m worried about her. The baby room painting is coming along nicely, but the rest of the house, to put it as charitably as I can, isn’t. So I’m trying to overcome a bit of mental jet lag and get back to work. … Read more