The Good: Decent concept with the accessories, Nice trading card, Balance, Good sculpt, Good articulation
The Bad: Poor accessory coloring, Chipped paint
The Basics: One of the best Star Trek: Voyager action figures Playmates Toys ever produced, The Doctor is still worth hunting down!
When it comes to the realm of Star Trek (franchise) toys, it is somewhat unsurprising to me that the only Star Trek: Voyager action figure I have so far reviewed was Neelix The Talaxian, an action figure that failed to impress me in any meaningful way. The Star Trek: Voyager action figure line was pretty erratic, with some of the best figures Playmates Toys produced for the Star Trek franchise and some of the absolute worst (Neelix and Torres, for example, hardly are great sculpts). There is little middle ground in the line and The Doctor falls toward the positive end of the spectrum of these figures.
The Doctor, the Emergency Medical Hologram, was arguably one of the most popular characters on Star Trek: Voyager and the action figure was a quick sellout in the assortment. The figure is actually more articulated than most Star Trek figures and is actually not a bad sculpt, but The Doctor is plagued by painting problems (at least on mine) and accessory coloring problems. Still, this is a generally cool figure and one that is easy to recommend.
Basics
The Star Trek: Voyager Collection of action figures (from 1995) contained only nine figures: the main cast of Star Trek: Voyager. This was the first series of figures from Star Trek: Voyager and because it contained only the principle cast, it tended to sell out quickly, especially The Doctor (who sold as quick or quicker than Captain Janeway! The Emergency Medical Hologram figure is the holographic doctor as he appeared throughout Star Trek: Voyager (reviewed here!).
Standing four and three-quarters inches tall, this is a decent likeness of Doctor immortalized in plastic. There is a decent level of uniform detailing, which is easy because the Emergency Medical Hologram wears a standard StarFleet uniform. Moreover, because the figure is from the first season, the later details of the Doctor's outfit, like his mobile emitter, are reasonably absent from the sculpt. The Doctor's face is molded in a blandly neutral expression, which fits the earliest incarnation of the character and it is clearly Robert Picardo's Emergency Medical Hologram character. The figure includes such important details as Doctor's tuft of hair on the back of his head and his bushy eyebrows. As well, the skin has a good basic sense of tone for the character, but lack the subtle details of the character's forehead wrinkles or color to the cheeks. The face and hair lack any sense of realistic toning. His eyes are appropriately brown, but the pupils are white instead of black!
The paint job is good. The skin tones are monolithic peach and lack any shading. Doctor's hands are underdetailed, with fingernails, but not knuckles, and are molded open enough to hold all of his accessories. The costume detailing includes the communicator badge and mine was painted just fine. However, I noted chipped paint on the shoulder and upper arm of my figure and this is sloppy on the part of Playmates Toys.
Accessories
Emergency Medical Hologram comes with five accessories, plus a trading card: a hypospray, PADD, Desktop monitor, an undefined medical tool and an action base shaped like a Federation Communicator badge. That Doctor comes with more equipment than weapons makes a great deal of sense, as his role on Star Trek: Voyager was limited to within sickbay and he was the doctor, not a soldier. The Action base is just enough to support Doctor and is a StarFleet delta shield with a little black sticker that reads "Doctor" to help keep it straight from the other figures. The center of the base has a peg which fits into the hole in either of Doctor's feet!
The desktop monitor was a generic accessory produced for the Star Trek: Voyager line which is awkward to fit into the figure's hands. The 1 1/2" long device has an extended base, which makes it great for sitting on consoles . . . if only there were Star Trek: Voyager playsets. The monitor screen is blank and there are few "keys" on the base, making this a big hunk of plastic that the figure looks inactive with.
The Medical PADD was also a standard accessory for this line of figure and was a 5/8" long plastic PADD which is great with the molded details of the recognizable StarFleet piece of equipment. This accessory fits nicely into either of The Doctor's hands, but while the uniform is realistically colored, the P.A.D.D. is not.
Similarly, the hypospray is a 3/4" tube that is instantly recognizable to fans of The Doctor as one of his essential tools. This accessory looks good in either of the Doctor's hands and proves that Playmates Toys CAN make decent sculpts of the accessories, even if they do not always put the effort in.
Finally, the medical tool (I think it's a protoplaser) is rich in surface details. A little longer than the hypospray, this is a replica of one of the tools The Doctor used to actually heal people (with more than just medicine, which is what the hypospray was for). This looks good in either of the Doctor's hands and allows those playing to actually have the Doctor look like he is performing work. Oddly, this figure does not come with a medical tricorder.
Unfortunately, all four of these accessories are molded in an inaccurate neon orange plastic that is utterly lacking in realistic coloring detail. Doctor is over-accessorized and with the lame coloring of the accessories, it is less exciting than it otherwise could be.
The 1995 line of Playmates action figures also comes with a very cool SkyBox trading card unique to the action figures. The Doctor card features a big shot of Doctor's head and upper body with a blue background that is quite striking. The back of the card has all sorts of vital information on Doctor and the figure is highly sought by card collectors who collected the cards and disposed of the figures.
Playability
Doctor thrilled most collectors of Playmates Star Trek action figures at the time and has not been done better since. Doctor is endowed with fourteen points of articulation: knees, thighs, groin socket, biceps, elbows, shoulders, neck, and waist. All of the joints, save the elbows and knees, are simple swivel joints. As a result, the neck turns left to right, for example, 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 posability!
Moreover, for use with actual play, Doctor 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 his base, Doctor is quite stable, even in fairly ridiculous poses, making him a great figure for display as well as play. Off his base, the Doctor still stands up, albeit in more limited poses.
Collectibility
Playmates produced the Star Trek: Voyager figures more conservatively than some of their earlier releases, and the Doctor was one of the most popular of the bunch. As a result, this Doctor is has increased in value. Seldom found loose, this one has risen in price as well because fans have bought so many of them at conventions to have autographed by Robert Picardo. As a result, it is hard to find one of these for less than $20 these days!
That said, at least Playmates tried to make the figures collectible. Each figure has an individual number on the bottom of his 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 6,500 figures out there (my Doctor is #006447!).
Overview
The Emergency Medical Hologram was a popular character on Star Trek: Voyager which made for a very popular action figure. Playmates got this one almost entirely right and one only wishes the accessories looked better and that the figure didn't come with chipped paint anywhere!
For other Star Trek (franchise) figures, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Captain Benjamin Sisko As A Klingon
Dr. McCoy In Dress Uniform
Commander Riker
7.5/10
For other toy reviews, check out my Toy Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the toys I have reviewed!
© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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