Formula One 2025 - It's RACE WEEK FINALLY - Join my Racing Fantasy League

 First off, yes, I WildWill the Budget Collector have succumbed to that demon that is Formula One.

It all started with the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix, the inaugural running.  I managed to catch a good portion of the race and just fell in love right then and there.  

Max won that race, and I liked his style, so he became my favorite guy.  Plus I just love the Red Bull Racing teams.  They rock in Sailing too.  My other favorite high end niche sport love.

I watched at least part of, if not all of every race last season, which was a damn fine season of racing.  Max Verstappen won his 4th straight Driver's Championship, and McLaren won the Constructor's for the first time in a long time.  I enjoyed each and every race, and I followed along in between the action.

And of course, I bought some merch.

Let's get the cat out of the bag first, racing merchandise is not cheap and it's not all that easy to find at retail.  Fortunately we do have the internet though.  Still clothing and replica cars, not inexpensive.  Although, if you know where to look....

For example, Bburago is the main die-cast licensor for F1, and they make a huge line of fine replicas in many different scales.  One of the more popular scale lines is 1:43, which is the old British O Train Scale.  They have a number of different releases throughout the year from the standard livery to special one-offs.  Some have additional accessories or figurines and cases.  They tend to start at about $15 for a no frills release and can go to the hundreds for limited editions.

Then there's a line you can get at Target for $6.99.

My current fleet of Bburago 1:43

Currently I have 2023 Team sets of Red Bull, McLaren and Aston-Martin.  With Charles LeClerc from Ferrari and Pierre Gasly from Alpine.  When the 2024s start I'll probably keep buying them.  I love them and want to have a whole starting grid.

I understand that from time to time they get multi-packs over at Costco or Sams too.  Great bargains for he price there.

Four Lego Speed Champions and a Not-lego

The Lego company had dabbled a bit with F1 licensing in years past, and had provided a couple of mini-figure scale Speed Champions which I managed to snag and build.  For 2025 though Lego and F1 went all out and are doing a massive push, which includes all 10 teams in Speed Champions and a couple of even larger builds, not to mention a bunch of kick-ass kid themed city sets.  There will also be mini-racer blind bags out later this year to collect.  It's a lot.  

I already have two of the 10 Speed Champions but haven't built them yet.  Waiting for closer to Race time.  I will then retire the bigger Not-lego RB19 in favor of the new Lego RB20 on my starting grid.  Which also I will have a rudimentary starting grid soon because I ordered some pieces from Lego to make one.  

I'm also collecting Topps F1 cards, starting the with 2024 Paddock Pass set.  I'm trying to put together a full set with the 20 image variations (for 100 cards), but it's not easy.  All I have found are Fat-Packs and overpriced Blasters.  

Oh yeah, if you want to join me in doing a Fantasy Race league for free - hit the link

https://fantasy.formula1.com/en/leagues/join/C2FR0GWEP10

Rick and Morty McFarlane Building Sets - Or When Your Favorite Pop Culture Brand Doesn't License with Lego

OK this is driving me crazy, my Google-Fu is failing me. I SWEAR I've seen a pic of an upcoming McFarlane Toys Rick and Morty construction set that comes with Beth, I want to say it's the Living Room of the Smith House, but I can't find it now. I mean, I have all of the R&M sets so far (except for the 3 mini sets with Krombopulous Michael, Ants-in-my-eyes Johnson and Scary Terry, only the latter of which I would remotely consider important to have). I MUST have a Beth figure to complete my Smith family of crappy too-large-Lego Figures. Dammit. Plus I have to figure out how to make the 3 previously released house sets go together. Spoiler Alert - they DO NOT fit together at all.

That was the Facebook post that I was going to post, but then decided to turn it into a blog post instead, because I don't write enough on my blog. Then I took pictures. I'm going somewhere with this. But first a short history of Lego and Lego Competitors.



So there's this awesome toy company called "Lego". They've been making toys since, like err...before World War II. They started off making simple wooden toys, like a wooden duck with wheels, but somewhere in the 50's they came up with their most brilliant concept ever, the interlocking brick. They weren't the first brick toy out there, wooden blocks have been toys since, well, trees were invented I guess. No, what they did was make them out of plastic and add some tubes underneath so that your two bricks could fit together and not come apart. They patented that concept and made a metric shit-ton of bricks. Seriously there's like at least 60 Lego bricks for every human on the planet.

In the late 70's (I want to say it was 1978 exactly) Lego introduced the modern "mini-figure" a squat one and one-half inch tall action figure to go with your lego bricks. Since then almost every awesome Lego set created has revolved around the mini-figure. Up until the late 90's Lego sets where themed very generically, usually around a real-world concept like "Town" or "Space". Actually, yeah that was it originally. Later sub-themes emerged like "Police" or "Adventurers" or "Space Police" and "Blacktron" in the science-fiction based lines. And these were fine.

And then Lego licensed Star Wars and the world has never been the same. NOW you could get official Lego versions of your favorite Star Wars characters, even a miniature R2-D2 that fit right in with your Luke, Leia, Obi-Wan and Darth Vader. Lego licensed Harry Potter as well and since then they've had such diverse themes as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Speed Racer, Pirates of the Caribbean, Disney and so many more. So many licenses. Not every brand goes with Lego though. Plenty of brands have Lego-type building sets, but they aren't Lego. Lego has had competitors since their earliest days. As I said the concept of building blocks isn't new, neither is what Lego did with their gripping techniques. So there's been hundreds of companies producing building bricks that are more or less "compatible" with Lego. Toy lines like Hasbro's GI Joe and Transformers had their own brick lines a few years ago with Hasbro's own in-house Kre-O line. The bricks themselves came from a South Korean toy comapany's Lego clones, and the mini-figures were designed to be reminiscent of Lego mini-figures but with added articulation. Kre-O also had the Star Trek master-license for a while and produced some nice mini-figure sized ships, along with smaller non-figure scale ships. We'll come back to Star Trek.

Lego's biggest competitor today is Mattel's Mega Bloks. Or Mega-Blocks. Nope, wait that's not right. They're definitely Mega-BLOKS. Originally an independent Canadian company, they were just another knock-off Lego brand with inferior plastic and uninteresting sets, until they too started licensing in the late 90's. Going after more kiddie-themed lines initially, soon Mega was able to leverage stronger licenses like Lord of the Rings, NASCAR and Power Rangers. With these licenses Mega started doing their own mini-figures which as one would expect, were initially very much like Lego's mini-figures. Over the years though Mega started introducing better articulation and sculpts to their mini-figures, culminating in their amazingly articulated Halo themed figures. Since then they've even published a line of carded single figures in a "Heros" line which includes Star Trek, Masters of the Universe, Alien and Futurama of all things. Yes Mega now holds the Star Trek license. But they're not doing a lot with it.

I'm not even going into the various brick Sports figures, but to say the least, there are two different scales amongst the 4 major sports. Oh and Playmobil licensed the NHL.

One of my favorite non-Lego brick lines was Character Building's Doctor Who range of toys, which saw a plethora of characters from throughout the entire 50+ year history of the franchise be released, alongside a few iconic building sets, which included two different Tardis interiors, a Dalek flying saucer and more than one version of the iconic Tardis box. They additionally had two versions of an 11 or 12 Doctor figure set and a blind-bagged version of the same. I know that doesn't make much sense. Doesn't matter. They stopped doing the line JUST after the 12th Doctor began, so we did get a Peter Capaldi figure in the line (and a War Doctor for that matter), we won't ever get any companions after Clara. Because now Lego more or less has the license and they're not doing anything with it. At all. Seriously. It sucks. I have over 100 Character building Doctor Who figures, and like 6 official Lego Doctor Who figures. And the Lego Daleks suck.

I digress.

McFarlane Toys, the company founded by former Marvel Wunderkind, Image Founder Todd McFarlane decided to jump into the building block foray with their The Walking Dead master license. Their TWD figures are more like seriously smaller versions of their well sculpted action figures. Not at all like Lego. Finished sets don't look much like Lego sets either. They're weird.

I first encountered McFarlanes building line with Kaylee's Five Nights at Freddies toys, which are more like Lego, but different. Way different. Figures are more built up than Lego, and they don't hold together very well. They use a mix of ABS and PVC plastics on different parts and they just feel weird. They fall apart very easily as well. The brick built set pieces are problematic to say the least. First of all and this will be pertinent in a little bit, the sets don't fit together in any modular way, despite depicting different parts of the same buildings. Secondly, again pieces are a mixture of plastics and don't fit together well in places. Thirdly, the ABS they use isn't anywhere near as good as the ABS that Lego uses. Lego is famous for their plastic quality (though less so in recent years due to their globalizing their manufacturing, rather than keeping it all in Denmark).

Currently there are seven available McFarlane Rick and Morty building sets. They are:

1. The Spaceship & Garage (with Rick and Morty figures)
2. The Garage Rack (with Mr. Meeseeks and Jerry figures)
3. The Hallway (with Evil Rick and Evil Morty figures)
4. Ants in my Eyes Johnson
5. Scary Terry
6. Krombopulous Michael
7. Summer's Bedroom (with Summer and Snowball/Snuffles figures)

Sets 4-6 are small builds with a figure and since they don't fit the overall theme of the house, I don't have them (yet).

Here's the overall layout as I have it arranged currently.  There's really no official way these go together.

Evil Rick inside of the Spaceship.  Which isn't a bad model, it's just not a good one either.  Some bits still fall right off and the stickers are terrible.

Evil Morty, who seems to be increasingly important

The hallway with the portal effect which is really cool.  Jerry in the background as he should be.  I really hope they do another Morty figure with a better facial expression.

The garage, which is actually two sets put together and they actually work somewhat.  There are a lot of detail bits here, like the monster Rick creates and destroys in the end sequence of "Auto Erotic Assimilation".  Device that Rick uses to destroy said creature (and try to kill himself too) doesn't stay on the counter very well.

This may well be my favorite set of all, it comes from my favorite scene in the entire show.  Many times I have held the Snowball figure in my hand saying "Where are my testicles Summer".  Believe it or not the Snowball is actually a mini-figure, though it's got a lot of added stuff.  It's actually built quite well and is my favorite thing McFarlane has ever done.  I'm glad I got a Summer figure finally, but I'd like one that can go adventuring with Rick and Morty.  This one is in her underwear.

 "Where are my testicles Summer"

Here's a bad pic of the garage.  Notice the Plumbus.  I now have four of them.  I think you might get one in every set.  That's not a bad thing.

So there you have it.  That's all my Rick and Morty building sets.  Now we're pretty aware that there will never be an official Lego Rick and Morty line, so until McFarlane gives up the license (to Mega let's face it) these are as good as we're going to get.  I still think they're missing the boat by not having these things officially fit together.  But if they can't make the FNAF sets fit together, they're not going to bother with these.

Lego Ideas Doctor Who Tardis Control Room #21304 Review

Today is my birthday and the only thing I wanted this year was the Lego Ideas Doctor Who set, and fortunately I have a wonderful Mom who got it for me!  This is my second foray into Lego Ideas, I previously purchased the Ghostbusters Ecto-1 Set last year.  After that build I knew this one would be fairly complicated and nuanced, using techniques that standard Lego sets don't usually use.  Mostly though I was interested in the comparison between what Lego can do with the license versus what Character Building did with it.

My Character Building Doctor Who Collection.  Over 100 figures.

See I was a huge collector of the Character Building Doctor Who Mini-Figure line.  Sure it wasn't expansive, but there were more than a few good sets.  I amassed a fairly large collection of the figures.  Yes, I was trying to get them all.  No I didn't succeed.  


For some reason I really enjoyed the look of these figures, at least the faces anyway.  Not only did I go for their Doctor Who line, but I tried to get anything they did, figuring that if I ever did want to do dio stories, and that included their Tardis set.  That set was just the box itself with no interior.  Now CB MADE at least one set of the interior, and it was huge and hugely expensive.  I enjoyed what CB did with the line, would I enjoy what Lego is going to do?  Let's find out.

LEGO IDEAS #21304 - Doctor Who

Yes, I suppose that's the official title.  It's not called "Tardis Control Room" on the box.  

Packaging: 5 of 5

It's a beautiful study box.  Unlike most other Lego sets, the Idea boxes are meant to last.  The front shows the entire contents of the set in action, the back has a couple of good close ups and the Mini-Figure lineup.  

I suppose I'd rather they actually photograph the physical item rather than using a computer generated image, but what can you do?

Unboxed Contents

Surprisingly this box isn't all that big.  For 623 pieces you'd think it would be bigger.  The other IDEAS boxes are rather small also.

Instructions 5 of 5

I'm not sure what more you could want.  You get a nice perfect bound book with easy to follow instructions, and background information on not only the show, but the designers of the set as well.  Plus it's in three languages.


 

Construction 4.5 of 5

Sort the pieces, you'll thank me.

No I'm not giving it a perfect score, it's a pretty darn fun build that took two hours to put together, and that was with only minimal help from my munchkin.  There's just something a bit off about this set, not much off, just a bit.  Maybe the lack of walls?  Or the lack of "play features".  On a set this size and this many pieces, for example the Lego Elves Treetop Hideaway (that my daughter also got from my Mom) has over 100 fewer pieces and no less than 3 action gimmicks.  

Decorations 5 of 5 

There's a nice mix of existing printed tiles and brand ew unique tiles to make any AFOL happy.  Did I mention there's no stickers?  That's quite nice.  My only quibble is that the "Police Box" tiles are separated, has to be that way for at least two of the sides due to it's construction.  There's even a couple of tiles with Galifreyan writing.    No stickers is such a key though.

Figures 4 of 5

I know right?  How can you go wrong with Lego Doctor Who figures?  Well, quite simply I'm not overly fond of the brick built Daleks.  Also I think the characters are just a bit too generic.  As in they're not easily identifiable as Doctor Who.  Heck the Clara figure looks just like any other female figure from any of their licensed lines.  I do like the Weeping Angel though.  The two sonic-screwdrivers you get are really nice as well.  Better than the CB versions.

Speaking of which, I thought I'd take comparison pis of each of the figures included in the Lego set and their CB counterparts.  Lego are consistently smaller, except for their Daleks.  Best of both worlds I suppose, since I'll be using my CB Daleks on display instead of the Brick Built ones.

 

Price 3 of 5

Yup, I'm dinging this set for the price.  At an MSRP of $60 this set comes in at 9.6 cents a piece, which is usually a pretty good price, until you realize that a ton of the pieces in this set are single studs.  Lego is expensive, we get it.  I'm just fortunate that I have a loving mother who will still buy her middle-aged son toys.  A couple of years ago she got me a Superman Lego set that I adore as well.  

Overall 5 of 5

And still it's a great set and I'm happy to have it.  I'm overjoyed to have it, and now all I need to complete my Lego Doctor Who collection are the two Dimensions sets.  Of course I don't have a crack machine to play the game on, so oh well. I just want the models.

If you're wondering, the Tardis box itself is much much larger than the old CB version.  

The CB version measured 6x6x9, while the Lego is 7x7x14.  It also feels much heftier.  Unfortunately though the door doesn't open, instead the box splits in the rear in order to connect to the larger model.  

Clara, it's coming, and it's a whopper!

 

3D Printing for Dummies - Or How I Learned How to Order on Shapeways

Blue Neo-Ego

This is about all I can
get him to do.

I'm a sucker for technology, I love following the latest and greatest gadgets and tech.  3D Printing is something that I've been following for a long, long time, and I'm please to say I finally dropped a dime and ordered my own 3D prints of existing models from Shapeways, the biggest 3D printing company in the world.

I had lurked on their forums long enough and seen all the really cool things that Shapeways can do for an intrepid CAD modeler.  I have ZERO CAD skills whatsoever, and no inclination to start learning, but what I do have is an endless fascination with miniatures and toys, and Shapeways is a place to satisfy that fascination.

Mr. Red Neo-Ego can pose

For my first foray I went ahead and ordered two different versions of a miniature articulated figure, not unlike a Lego Mini-Fig.  The first was this one: Cool Ego and Neo-Ego.  These babies aren't cheap, they run between $6-8 per figure, and shipping is a flat $6.30 per order.  I decided to order four figures to minimize shipping costs.  After a couple of weeks I got two of my four figures, the Cool Ego was not printed and cancelled.  The Neo-Egos printed fine and after a bit of difficulty I got them put together.

Or just stand there

The Neo-Ego is not great, I have to say.  The articulation isn't quite as nice as I'd hope (though it's still better than Lego) and the tightness of the figures fit is very hit and miss.  The red figure is pretty stiff and will hold a pose, while the blue figure is completely loose and can't pose for beans.

Needless to say I wasn't that thrilled with the fact that they cancelled half of my order and my shipping discount was basically blown.  I actually decided to call Shapeways and ask about the shipping once the creator of the Cool Ego figures rejiggered his model to print properly.  They actually gave me a credit for the shipping and even though the remodeled figures were slightly more expensive, I made a second order.

Ms. Blue Cool-Ego

Ms. Red Cool-Ego, though
you can't tell she has a face

Cool Ego is light years ahead of the Neo Ego.  There's two head-sculpts included, and the portrait is actually quite nice.  The articulation is really well done and the pieces fit together tightly and hold their pose.  The only difficulty is that putting it together can be a real drag.  The plastic that is printed is not "smooth and polished" like they advertise on the site. It's quite rough, though the roughness makes the small details really pop up close.  I do believe the heads can hold standard Lego head-gear and the hands are standard Lego clips.  The Cool-Ego has wrist swivels, while the Neo-Ego does not.

I haven't tried any of the other plastics available but I'd like to do so in the near future.  I bet a clear version of these guys would be really cool looking.  I'd love to get a full sized 1/18th scale figure printed but I don't see any viable candidates at the moment.

Blue Cool-Ego, Vintage Lego Mini-Fig, Red Neo-Ego

They fit in a golf-ball cube

Looking Good There Guys

Adventures in eBay - Lego From My Childhood Edition

If you grew up in the time period roughly from the mid 1960's to today you probably played with Lego Bricks at one point or another.  The Lego company traces their existence back to 1916, and their brick toys to 1947.  Suffice to say the growth of Lego toys seriously impacted virtually every kid at one point or another.  Lego seems to be a toy that grows with kids, and kids never really grow out of them.  I stopped buying Lego kits sometime in my teens, but as soon as I moved out of my parents house and had a job of my own I started buying them again with a vengeance, and I never really threw away my Lego.  I still have most of my bricks and instructions, if not the boxes themselves.  Over the course of time I've been trying to reacquire a few sets from my youth that I didn't keep intact.

My first Lego sets were the Universal Building Sets, which now are simply tubs of bricks.  These were the sets that had no real models to build, just whatever you wanted, and the best thing was that they came with large base plates you just don't see much anymore.

I do recall my first large set, that would be #585-1 Police Headquarters which was one of the last few sets BEFORE real mini-figs came out in 1978.  I know for a fact I still have some pieces left from that set.  My second major set was #6929 Star Fleet Voyager and I remember getting that for Christmas somewhere in the early 80's.  While I don't reasonably expect to ever repurchase a Police Headquarters, and with the static old-school proto-mini-figs I really am not sure I'd want one.  But I do check out eBay and other places for the Star Fleet Voyager on a regular basis.

The last of my three original kits that I desired to repurchase was the smallest: the simply elegant 6648-2 Town Dump-Truck, and thanks to a recent eBay purchase, I now have one.  I paid $6.99 plus $5.95 shipping.  Considering it's a vintage kit, with instructions, I think I did OK.  I recall that the original price my Grandparents paid was about $5-10 but that was at the Los Angeles Children's Museum, which isn't there anymore, and it was over 30 years ago.

The vehicle is all of 41 pieces, most of them yellow or black and all pretty much standard.  The only real "specialized" pieces here are the rollbar, the windshield, the truck bed and the hinge piece that lets the truck bed dump out.  It's a really simple build that took all of about two minutes to complete.  It is a thing of beauty.  Lego just doesn't do small vehicles quite the same way.  Now the cabs are all one piece and the wheels are tiny.

My original set wasn't kept as a truck very long.  I loved the bed with six wheels and the tilting rear, so I designed a small airplane using most of the same parts with forklift type sleds in the front to make it look cool.  It flew off the back hinge as a launch ramp.  This one though, it's staying on my desk.  Without being put together with the Kragle...because hey, the driver does kind of look like Emmit from the movie doesn't he?


.
By the way, the pictures were all taken in my new light tent, nifty hunh?

Character Building Doctor Who Tardis Mini Set Review

Building the Tardis

I think that just about everyone who was born after 1965 has had something or other to do with Lego, either watching their kids play with it, or more than likely, playing with Lego themselves. I wish I could count myself as a first-generation Lego kid, but alas, that's not really the case. Lego has been around since the late 40's, and their iconic construction bricks first appeared in 1964, but I started playing with them in the mid-70's.

Which is all really cool, but this article isn't really about Lego. I will have something on Lego next week, as we are planning our first trip EVER to California Legoland this weekend for Kaylee's 5th birthday, but SHHHH...that's a surprise.

Nope, this article is about the Doctor Who Character Building line of toys, which isn't at all Lego. Though it looks a LOT like Lego, and feels a lot like Lego, it's really not Lego.

That's OK, there's a LOT of brands that are "not Lego." Even back in the day there was Lock Blox and Mega Blocks, which is not really the same brand as the current Megablocks. Today there's dozens of "off-brand" or clone Lego bricks each with varying levels of quality. I've played with quite a few of them over the years, and I've personally invested quite a bit in the Mega Blocks line of Pyrates and Pirates of the Caribbean sets. NOTHING usually compares to Lego. UNTIL TODAY.

Character Options has had the license to create Doctor Who toys since the stalwart BBC series was revived in 2005, creating a vast line of 5" scale figures, role-playing toys and all sorts of toys and ephemera based on the entire realm of Who and isn't slowing down any time soon. This year they decided to try Construction Toys, as the price of plastic seems to be irrecovably tied to the price of oil (gee I wonder why) many toy companies are looking for ways to expand numbers of skus while contracting the amount of plastic involved. Hence, smaller is better. We've seen this before by the way. Part of the popularity of the original Kenner line of Star Wars figures was that they were cheap to produce and to purchase, so kids could have a lot of them. Their sub 4-inch size was 50 to 75% smaller than other popular toyline sizes at the time (Mego's 8-inch line of figures and Hasbro's 12" GI Joes).

The new line of Doctor Who toys is branded "Character Building" which is actually it's own line of toys, as there are Non-Who building sets and figures that are also available (mainly in the UK) that are compatable, so if you really want to build a military UNIT type squad to accompany your Doctor figures, you can. It's quite cool.

Following Lego's massively popular Blind Packed Figure Series the Doctor Who line is available in both set form, and blind packs. Complete with chase figures. Joy. I managed to find the Tardis MIni-Set online for just about $20 shipped. More on that later.

Character Building The Tardis Mini Set Review

Packaging: 4 of 5

The box is nice and sturdy with the current BBC Logos and nice glamour shots of the actual product. The back has a short write up on the series and the TARDIS and introduces the Doctor and Amy. As if you needed that. We're also shown the figure's actual size twice. So that's something.

Instructions: 4 of 5

The booklet is quite nicely illustrated much in the style of current Lego instructions. They pictures are not quite as good though and there are a couple of instances where even an adult might get confused, but for the most part, it's well done. There's also a parts list, but that's about it. There also weren't any other inserts other than two sheets of stickers. I suspect there's only supposed to be one sheet, as you really only need one sheet, but I got two.

Construction: 4 of 5

The TARDIS is a box, let's not forget that, so as such it should be pretty easy to build, and it is. Though there are a couple of tricky spots with the doors (those TEENY TINY prongs that form the hinges are very small and could be easily broken. Plus they are difficult to put in their pegs). Once your doors are in place, you definitely don't want to open them inside (as the Doctor always does) because they're very difficult for big fingers to pull out. The size is also extremely deceptive. This TARDIS is tiny on the outside and inside. The entire height of the box including the light on top isn't much more than 3 1/2 inches tall, and it's barely 2 inches wide. In Lego parlance, it's 6 w x 6 l x 9 t.

The bricks themselves feel very close to Lego plastic and appear to be made with the same or similar quality control. There are a couple of unique pieces that I've not seen made as Lego before (namely the top of the TARDIS , the light bulb and the panels of the Police Box). The model itself is very simply constructed with nothing really difficult about the engineering. It's simple enough to not need any additional tinkering either.

Decorations: Stickers & 'cardboard': 4 of 5

The stickers are well printed, especially the front plaque, but they're still stickers, and for adult fingers they can be a pain to put on. There's also a cardboard insert that goes inside the box which gives the illusion of it being "bigger on the inside". It's a nice piece and doesn't detract from the overall aesthetic, but it can be difficult to get 'just right' in the box.

Size Comparison: Mini-mate, Amy Pond, Toy Story Alien Lego, Musketeer Lego, 11th Doctor

Figures: 5 of 5

Here's where the set really shines, the Amy Pond and 11th Doctor figures are simply superb. They are virtually the same size as Lego, and infinitely more cute. Plus they have slightly better articulation with the addition of a waist swivel that Lego can never duplicate. They're certainly different than Lego as well, they're much more about curves and roundness with sculpted uniqueness rather than uniformity of Lego. The tampo printed torsos are very nicely done on both figures, each depicting very small details such as buttons and belt buckles. The faces are cute as can be as well, with the Doctor showing a smirk that he knows something you don't know. Plus the Doctor has his Sonic Screwdriver. Very cool. The figures can both sit down, Amy isn't even hindered by her vinyl skirt. I'd love to have more 'accessories' but really what do you need besides the screwdriver?

Price: 3 of 5

I purchased this set from Langton Info.com for just over $20 shipped. There isn't anywhere else cheaper on the Net right now. MSRP on this is somewhere between $15.99 and $19.99, which I would consider as pretty pricey. A comparable sized Lego set runs about $12 at retail, and the other clone brands are even cheaper.

Overall: 4 of 5

I LOVE this set, and I was excited to both order it and to receive it. Especially since I ordered it directly from the UK. I don't know if there's any differences between the UK and US versions, I highly doubt there are, but if so, mine's original! Even though I consider it more expensive than it should be, it's still a great small set, and I can't wait to get more. Problem is you can't find these things at retail AT ALL! I would imagine that they were available to Comic Book stores through Diamond Distributors and that at some point they'll be available widely in the US, since they're being advertised on the BBC America broadcasts of new episodes. I sure hope so. I haven't seen the blind package mystery figures yet either.