It feels like it took forever for the LEGO Ideas Doctor Who set to arrive in stores, but — in this case especially — time is relative. It’s here now at least, and it’s fantastic.
Thanks goodness for senior video game artist Andrew Clark, who combined his love for both LEGO bricks and Time Lords into one wonderful pitch to LEGO Ideas, the site where fan creations have a very slim chance at becoming official play sets. Clark submitted his work in February of 2014. It gained the 10,000 votes needed to be considered by the LEGO Ideas board, and one year later it was approved.
The set was released earlier this month, and last night I finally got a chance to put all of the pieces together.
It was a relatively easy build, as many LEGO Ideas sets are. Knowing popular entertainment properties will likely draw in those outside of traditional LEGO fandom, the instruction manual gives short, concise steps to putting together the TARDIS control room and the iconic blue box itself. The only trouble I ran into was with dark blue Police Box bits blending together in the booklet — that’s probably more an issue with my eyes than anything else.
The set comes with four minifigures and two Daleks, which are essentially mini-kit builds.
We’ve got the 12th and current Doctor, Peter Capaldi, whose LEGO hair does not do him justice. The 11th Doctor, Matt Smith, is looking dapper in tiny form. Their mutual companion Clara is present — sadly the set does not come with a crow made of smoke to remedy that.
And of course it wouldn’t be Doctor Who without two of the series’ most frightening enemies.
Well, relatively frightening. The Daleks have seen better days.
But the Weeping Angel, the horrific statues introduced in the new series that can only move when you’re not looking at them…
…they’re nothing to worry about, as long as you don’t turn your back on them.
The shows’ most enduring star fared quite well in the transition from real thing to brick creation.
More than just a big blue box, the Doctor’s time and space machine is the centrepiece of the set. It can open up, revealing a hidden passenger:
Or it can connect to the interior playset:
Like man fans I would have preferred the TARDIS interior be contained inside the TARDIS where it belongs, but this is the next best thing. (And this is the very best thing.)
The time rotor is impressively blue and glowy.
The console itself was the most intricate part of the build, but the results are fantastic.
They even managed to work in the door opening mechanism, which is good, because otherwise they’d all be trapped.
There are even consoles along the railings, so Matt Smith has something to do while everyone else is off saving the universe.
There’s only one real problem with the LEGO Ideas Doctor Who set — there’s only one of them. Sure, they packed two of the 13 Doctors in it, but if two were enough the show wouldn’t have made it out of the ’70s. LEGO has all of the designs — just check out the LEGO Dimensions Doctor Who set. Perhaps if this $80 box of parts sells well enough we’ll see more.
Comments
6 responses to “The Doctor Who LEGO Set: What Took You So Long, Old Man?”
Nice to see I’m not the only one with a strong distaste for Clara.
Now, bring on the David Tennant and Catherine Tate sets!
I forgot this was coming out! Now I just need to find where to buy it!
You can grab it from the Lego store, and Toys R Us stocks it as well (though it’s currently unavailable).
Bought this only because bow ties are cool.
I’m guessing this set is based on Time of the Doctor, considering that Capaldi’s doctor is still wearing Matt Smith’s outfit from when he regenerated.
I hope they release more sets for different Doctors, and eventually a proper Lego Doctor Who videogame (I ain’t paying the buckets of money required for Lego dimensions just to play the Doctor Who level)
I got the Lego Dimensions for my little boy because he loves everything Lego and the Doctor Who level is good. It has the weeping Angels in the second part of the level to get away from and is very exciting and kinda scary! But yeah, do not buy the game if all you want is the Doctor Who part.
7/Ace set, thanks.
7/Ace, 4/Sarah Jane, 9/Rose/Jack…
Maybe they should just make minifigures of everybody. Bet they’d sell quite a few.