What I Opened Today: ‘The Dead Planet’ Sound FX Dalek

My toy runs have been so Walgreens centric lately, imagine my surprise when I found new Doctor Who toys at Toys R Us! I ended up buying a few 3 3/4″ figures ($15 each, yikes!) and a 5″ talking Dalek (oddly also $15). Let’s start with our exterminating friend, shall we?

Package Bio: The Daleks were created by the Kaled scientist, Davros as travel machines. He had deduced that the years of radiation and chemical poisoning from an ongoing war would lead his race to mutate into immobile organisms.

The Dalek travel machines would house these creatures and allow the Kaleds to to survive. However, in the course of his experiments, Davros deliberately removed what he considered to be debilitating emotions from the mutants and a force of evil was spawned!

The Daleks were born without any ability to feel compassion or pity and were motivated only be heate, fear and an implacable belief that they were the superior creatures in the Universe.

Thoughts: This Dalek is based on the story ‘The Dead Planet’ which is the second episode of Doctor Who ever and introduced the Daleks to the world. Of course if this was going to be completely accurate, the only thing that would be in the bubble would be the Dalek’s plunger as the episode ends with the Barbara up against a wall screaming as a plunger comes towards her. Since a plunger in a bubble isn’t likely to sell that well, we get a full Dalek as they appeared in the following episodes of the story – a silver body with light blue bumps. The eye blinkers on the dome are small and round.

Regardless of scale (5″ 3 3/4″ other), Daleks are something that Character Options / Underground Toys do near perfectly. With the Sound FX Daleks, they take their near perfect Dalek figure and add an era appropriate sound chip. It is disappointing that the sound clip isn’t episode specific, but this is a good compromise. The button for the sounds is hidden away in one of the Dalek bumps, hiding it extremely well. Sound clips included with the ‘Dead Planet’ Dalek are:

• Resistance is Useless (The Dalek Invasion of Earth)
• Daleks are the Masters of all
• Daleks will destroy all life
• Exterminate! (The Power of the Daleks, and essentially all others)
• Annihilate! Destroy! (The Power of the Daleks)
• Daleks Conquer and Destroy! (The Power of the Daleks)

The volume and sound quality of the clips is quite good. When the batteries die, they are easily replaced as there’s an access panel on the bottom of the Dalek next to an on/off switch. I won’t go into the other details of the Dalek, scuplt and such, as it’s near perfect.

Summary: Throughout the entire Classic Doctor Who line there have been many, many Daleks released…and they’re so good I have happily bought many, many Daleks. The Sound FX ‘Dead Planet’ is a great addition to my collection blending in perfectly with all the others but with a touch of a bump he’s ordering me to ‘Exterminate!’.  For just $15 at Toys R Us these are a steal and I know I’ll be picking up the ‘Chase’ and ‘Genesis’ Daleks as well.