Monday, February 25, 2013

A Figure For About Two Seconds Of Screentime: Lieutenant Jadzia Dax In StarFleet Duty Uniform!


The Good: Good sculpt, Good coloring, Decent variety of accessories
The Bad: Accessory coloring, Purpose of figure
The Basics: An obvious reuse, the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Lieutenant Jadzia Dax in StarFleet Duty Uniform Playmates figure is not worth hunting down.


When I considered the Julian Bashir in StarFleet Duty Uniform action figure (reviewed here!), I pounced upon it for how worthless the figure is, based on the fact that the figure came from about thirty seconds of on-screen presentation of the character. Sharing those same thirty seconds was Jadzia Dax in StarFleet Duty Uniform, which got a similar action figure made for it.

Lieutenant Dax, for those who were not tuned in to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, was the Chief Science Officer of space station Deep Space Nine. She arrived on the space station as the only real friend Commander Sisko had in the universe. When Lieutenant Dax appeared on the screen for the first time in “Emissary” (reviewed here!), she wore the predominately blue uniform that was identical to what Deanna Troi wore in the last two seasons.

Basics

The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 1995 Collection of action figures was largely recast primary command crew of space station Deep Space Nine and only one or two new figures. The Lieutenant Dax in StarFleet Duty Uniform was one of the least exciting additions to the collection and might well be a Dax head stuck on a Deanna Troi Season 7 action figure body! Lieutenant Dax is a Trill officer, a young woman who is looking at Deep Space Nine as a place to experience enough to keep her symbiont stimulated. Dax appears in her second action figure as a very typical StarFleet officer, though she is a Trill and has the spots. She is attired in her blue standard StarFleet uniform. This was one of the more common action figures in the assortment and it remains exceptionally easy to find even now. Still, card collectors helped keep this from being a complete pegwarmer as it features a SkyBox pog card exclusive to the action figure, which made it hunted by trading card collectors as well.

The Lieutenant Dax figure is the Trill StarFleet officer as she appeared in her first minute or two in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, with the primarily blue uniform and pulled back ponytail. Lieutenant Dax is attired in her teal StarFleet uniform with the black pants and shoulders. The outfit is colored appropriately and the figure is well-detailed with the spots.

Standing four and three-quarters inches tall, this is a surprisingly vibrant recreation of Lieutenant Dax immortalized in plastic. The character is molded with her hands ready to hold most of her accessories in a half-closed position. She appeared to have a body that was recycled from a different figure. That said, her legs have a very neutral stance, so this figure stands up and looks like she is ready to be displayed, as opposed to an action pose which made some of the earlier Star Trek figures more problematic for posing in displays. Lieutenant Dax has great balance off her stand, though she should be kept in a flatfooted position (so the stand helps with balance). There is a decent level of uniform detailing, including the communicator pin on the chest being both molded into the figure and then painted on. The sculpting details lessen, though at the hands, where Dax has less detailing, including a lack of defined knuckles or painted on fingernails.

Lieutenant Dax's face is molded in an enthusiastic expression that looks very much like Terry Farrell. She has the Trill spots around her neck and head and her eyes are bright and appropriately blue with black and white pupils. This is the same head that was on the initial action figure release for Dax.

The paint job is great, especially for the spots around her face. The skin tones are monotonal white with no shading or subtlety. The figure's lips are painted an unnaturally bright pink that looks fine, especially given how her lips looked on the show.

Accessories

Lieutenant Dax comes with six accessories, including the base, most of which had noticeably been recycled from Star Trek: The Next Generation figures. Lieutenant Dax comes with a tricorder, Trill symbiont, Biosample collector, hypospray, and the base. The Action base is a StarFleet delta shield symbol with the name "DAX" stuck on it with a cheap, black sticker. The center of the base has a peg which fits into the hole in either of Lieutenant Dax's feet! When Lieutenant Dax stands flatfooted on the stand, she is stable for balance and has a decent, neutral display appearance. The base is also enough to support Dax in more outlandish poses, which is nice.

The Tricorder is a similarly light-on-details accessory. The 3/4" box looks like the scanning device used by Lieutenant Dax and it fits in either of her hands. This has the surface details of a tricorder, but it does not do anything.

The symbiont is troubling in that it is a purple worm-shaped is a 1” long purple piece of plastic that has the swirls and markings of the Trill symbiont seen briefly on the show. It does not, however, fit into the figure in any way, so it is somewhat disturbing to see it outside the figure.

Finally, there is the biosample container and hypospray. These are two cylinders an inch long with varying diameters and shapes that are actually pretty good replicas of the obscure props used by Dax on the show.

There is, however, an unfortunate aspect of all four of Lieutenant Dax's accessories; they are molded in a bright red plastic which looks nothing like what the props looked like on the show. Clearly Playmates went through some effort to sculpt the accessories realistically, but the coloring minimizes the sense of realism and clashes with the coloring of the figure. Lieutenant Dax is over-accessorized and her accessories are pretty hideous colors for props they are supposed to represent.

As well, Playmates included a SpaceCap pog unique to the figure from SkyBox which attracted trading card collectors to this figure in addition to toy collectors. The pog has a headshot of Lieutenant Dax with a wormhole background. The back has a checklist for all the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine action figures that contained the pogs!

Playability

Lieutenant Dax continued a generally high playability quality from Playmates and she was quite good at the time, pleasing collectors and fans alike. Lieutenant Dax is appropriately stiff, but has decent poseability. Lieutenant Dax is endowed with thirteen points of articulation: knees, groin socket, biceps, elbows, shoulders, neck, ponytail and waist. All of the joints, save the elbows and knees, are simple swivel joints. As a result, the neck turns left to right, but the head cannot nod. Similarly, the shoulders are not ball and socket joints and only rotate. Still, Playmates dealt with this limitation by having a swivel joint in the bicep, that allows everything below to turn and offers real decent poseability!

Moreover, for use with actual play, Lieutenant Dax may bend or extend at the elbows, which offers a greater amount of movement potential making him one of the more realistic Star Trek action figures to play with (for those who actually play with these toys!). On her base, Lieutenant Dax is exceptionally stable, even in the most ridiculous poses. She actually looks very dignified and ready to study the universe in her neutral display pose.

Collectibility

Playmates vastly overproduced the second wave of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine figures and Lieutenant Dax In StarFleet Duty Uniform was quite the pegwarmer. It has not appreciated at all in value over the years.

That said, at least Playmates tried to make the figures collectible. Each figure has an individual number on the bottom of her right foot. In the attempt to make them appear limited, they had numbers stamped on them, though one has to seriously wonder how limited something should be considered when there are at least 36000 figures out there (my Lieutenant Dax is #035592!).

Overview

The Lieutenant Dax figure is mediocre and an obvious reuse of prior elements in Playmates Toys’s attempt to make a buck, which fans largely rejected at the time and still should.

For other Jadzia Dax action figures, please check out my reviews of:
Jadzia Dax In StarFleet Utility Uniform
Jadzia Dax In Klingon Attire
Dax In Dress Uniform
Warp Factor 2 6” Jadzia Dax
Art Asylum Jadzia Dax from “Trials And Tribble-ations
Diamond Select Jadzia Dax

4/10

For other toy reviews, please visit my Toy Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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