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On December 1, 2015, just in time for Christmas in most of the world, LEGO is releasing the LEGO Ideas Doctor Who 21304 Building Kit. Available in the US for $59.99 from Amazon.com, the set marks the first LEGO set to feature the venerable doctor and his TARDIS, which is of course bigger on the inside.
A hands on review is available on Brickset.com.
Doctor Who In Brief:
For those not familiar with the classic BBC series, Doctor Who follows the adventures of a centuries old time-lord from a distant planet destroyed by war. Although it’s sometimes hard to tell if that happened in the past or will happen in the future. The Doctor is joined by a female companion and has a number of well known and recurring enemies, such as the Daleks, the Cybermen and the Weeping Angels. The Doctor is nearly immortal, but sometimes has to regenerate and take on a new appearance and personality. Hence the many different Doctors we’ve seen. The show’s tone mixes mostly semi-absurd humor with moments of terror and truly touching events. Personally I didn’t “get” the show in the early incarnation, but the new series from 2005, which started with Christopher Eccleston, I found really accessible and engaging.
The core of the show, aside from the people, is the TARDIS which stands for “Time and Relative Dimension In Space” and is shown to have a brain and even emotion at times. The TARDIS is “bigger on the inside” due to “dimensional transcendentality”, which is TV code for “we couldn’t fit a camera in a police box”, I think.
Doctor Who is not the only show in the franchise. The other major shows are The Sarah Jane Chronicles and my personal favorite, Torchwood.
Origins of the Set:
This set is was created by LEGO and Doctor Who fan Andrew Smith, and selected by LEGO Ideas members. In the LEGO Ideas projects, anyone can submit a set they think LEGO should create, and getting 10,000 supporters moves the idea forward for review by LEGO. Other Ideas sets have included Wall-E, The Big Bang Theory, Birds and LEGO Ghostbusters Ecto-1 among others.
Included in the set is a booklet about the fan designer and the BBC series.
Overview of the Set:
Let’s handle the minifigures first. The set comes with 2 Doctors (Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi), his companion Clara Oswald and a weeping angel. It also includes 2 Daleks which allows for a variety of scenarios to be displayed or acted out. The main accessory is a tiny replica of the twelfth Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver. 3 of the 4 minifigures have alternate expressions, so you can rotate the head to display a more appropriate emotional response.
Once you’ve built the TARDIS, it can be closed and look like the standard blue police box from the series, or it can open up to connect to the full console room giving it the appearance of being bigger on the inside. The console room recreates many of the details fans of the series will recognize.
I for one can’t wait to pick up this set and assemble it. Although the part count at 623 pieces isn’t that high, it appears the details are all taken care of.
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