I'm a dingle-dangle scarecrow with a flippy floppy hat. Of BLOOD. (Character Options Doctor Who - Scarecrow)

Member Name: andrewl

Product:	Character Options Doctor Who - Scarecrow
Date:	08/09/09 (60 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice sculpt, no fiddly bits

Disadvantages: A scarecrow with fingers?

Action figures. Once a truly awesome toy, that enabled imaginative children to re-enact their favourite scenes from popular films and TV shows, and to create bold new adventures (mostly featuring a Death Star Commander because Gran didn't know which Star Wars figures were the cool ones. Or was that just me?).

Now... they are collectables. Don't play with them. Don't even take them out of the packaging. Don't, whatever you do, let children anywhere near them, for God's sake.

Doctor Who action figures have been going in some form or other since the 1960s (although you could only get Daleks then). In the 1980s, Dapol produced a small range just as the series was in terminal decline, so I was once the proud owner of a Bonnie Langford action figure.

The relaunch of the show in 2005 prompted a full-on merchandising glut which continues to this day, and a proper range of action figures in the Star Wars tradition (ie, even characters you can't even remember from the series). It goes without saying that some sell better than others, so I was able to pick up a Scarecrow from Argos for £3 while I was buying a bookcase.


Human Nature and The Family of Blood

Paul Cornell's Human Nature kicked off the second half of Doctor Who's 2007 season. The Doctor, chased by some shifty aliens, hid his soul in a fobwatch and became John Smith. He became a teacher and fell in love with Daisy from Spaced while Martha protected him by working as a cleaner.

The Scarecrows are, well, just that. The Family of Blood apparently need some henchmen, despite having heavy-duty green zappy guns. Luckily, a local farmer is obsessed with making incredibly lifelike scarecrows with scary faces for his fields, and the straw-stuffed little blighters stalk up to provide one of the best Doctor Who cliffhangers of recent years.


My Little Scarecrow

My Scarecrow has long been removed from its Doctor Who branded blister pack. He stands at about four inches and wears russet rags and a sack over his head, finished off nicely with a blue cloth cravate and a rope belt. His little brown shoes look nicer than mine and, oh dear, he seems to have human hands sicking out of the plumes of straw on the end of his arms.

Giving the shoes and hands the benefit of the doubt, he's a nice sculpt, with the empty sunken eyes that made the characters so menacing on screen, and the plastic 'clothes' have both a convincing textured look to them, and have been painted to look a bit mucky. He looks like a character that's been standing around in a field for a while.

Maybe a bit more straw would have been a good plan, out of the bottom of the trousers, or something, but otherwise I think it's a close to perfect little model.

He also has eight joints, or 'points of articulation' as I think sad toy collectors call them: hips, knees, elbows, shoulders. His head kind of waggles as well, but I'm not 100% sure that it's supposed to.
The full range of leg movement is hindered by the tunic thing he's wearing, but that's OK. To me, having countless movable parts on an action figure is a bit of a mixed blessing - there's generally only about three poses in which they will actually stand up unsupported.

In this regard the Scarecrow is also pretty good. Considering the straw 'cuffs' give him longer arms than the average action figure, I was expecting he'd have to be constantly propped up against things, or keep his arms by his sides. But he's actually pretty well-balanced.

Even better, for me, he didn't come with any guns or other removable accessories. While the Doctor's sonic screwdriver, or Rose's hairdryer always look great when the toys are in their box, the truth is that they get lost so easily. If a 30 year old bloke can lose these tiny bits of moulded plastic, what chance has a 7 year old kid got?


Other Scarecrows

So, if you buy one of these Scarecrows (originally £7 or £8 but found in Argos by me for just £3), you or your kid can re-enact Human Nature's cliffhanger and the bit where scarecrows got shot up by a machine gun in a schoolyard.

Also, though, the Master pointlessly dressed up as a scarecrow in 1985's Mark of the Rani, so that's an additional option. If you're bored.

And of course there's the hapless man farmer Tinsel has tied up in his field in the League of Gentlemen, after catching him at it with his wife.
Enjoy playing with scarecrow dolls.

Summary: Nice action figure of a minor Doctor Who character