With special guest star Majel Barrett as Lwaxana Troi.
Costume variants make a toyline go ’round. After already having two passes at Troi’s v-neck jumpsuit thing previously, the next stop was to do some representation of Professional Troi who actually finally wore a regular uniform on duty. Thank you, Captain Ronny Cox for issuing that order during the five minutes you were in charge.
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As near as I can tell, Troi is made of new parts. I had thought the arms might have been partially shared with the earlier non-uniform Troi body, but I think it’s just a matter of similar proportions. After Troi, there would be several more female Starfleet officers on the same or very similar body styles, including Ensign Ro, Dr Crusher without the lab coat, Jadzia Dax in TNG-style uniform, and with some modifications, Tasha Yar and Dr Pulaski. But Troi seems to have been the first, and so the jumping off point to expanding the character selection in this direction.
One gripe I have with this figure is the uniform color. Skip to the next paragraph if you aren’t interested in this very particular Star Trek nerd moment. The science division uniform was a weird and kind of inconsistent thing, where you’d have both very blue uniforms, but also these more teal uniforms, which is what this figure has. It kind of appeared like this difference eventually came to reflect whether an officer was in the medical division or “life sciences”, or belonged to some other scientific discipline. Now, as the ship’s therapist, Troi ought to have a medical-tinted uniform even though the show seemed to largely gloss over psychologists being doctors. That’s a subject for another time. But if that’s the case, this figure must be correct, right? Yeah, except the uniform Marina Sirtis would wear for the remainder of the show was the more blue-blue of the Undifferentiated Sciences. Was Playmates trying to correct what they saw as an error in their own limited way? Did someone give them bad references? Heck if I know, but either way I want the figure to look like the uniform that was on TV. <!–endgripe–>
Troi has a completely new head sculpt, and the second try at this went a lot better. A lot better. I do own both colors of the original Troi figure, but I don’t have them on hand to shoot comparisons. If you want an idea of what the original was versus what this one is, Adam Pawlus has a good photo shoot of the older Troi figure on 16bit.com. The sculpt of the hair is pretty good, but as it flows down past the neck, it does inhibit the range of movement on the neck quite a bit.
I think I explained when talking about Tom Riker that all of the figures with leg articulation use a v-cut pelvis, causing the legs to swing wildly out to the sides as you try to bring them forward. The female figures were no exception, surprisingly enough. Had I a correctly-sized chair, I could have depicted how awkward that makes casual seated poses. Instead you’ll have to suffer with one half of Slammin’ BasketsFashion It So is absolutely worth a proper read, but the source of this specific reference is pretty far down the page for its particular episode, so just do a ctrl+f for “baskets” if that’s all you want to see. for the ultimate proof of how terrible a choice this was.
The accessories are the same batch of gear that the previous Trois had. A standard Starfleet proto-laptop desktop computer monitor – buy the right cross section of Playmates figures and you’ll have a ton of these floating around in a literal rainbow of colors.
A PADD and Tricorder, with hand loops so that Troi’s dainty hands can grasp them in some way. It works, but it limits how especially the PADD can be carried, making it not really look like Troi is using it at all. The Tricorder gets by well enough, though.
Then there’s the Future Space-Purse. This is listed as a portable computer unit, but I mean. It’s a purse. A version of this came with at least one of the Dr Crushers, in which case it was a medical kit, which is a more dignified type of Space-Purse. The prop matching this was most often seen in that role in the show too, but I think this did occasionally pop up as an engineering gadget. The strap comes loose at one end so you can put it across the body. Having it hanging straight from one shoulder can kind of work, but the cross-body style is how it’s supposed to work and not fall off at the slightest provocation. And speaking of provocation…
We have a visit from Troi’s mom! This isn’t actually a double feature, but when I was shopping for a few extra figures for this week’s theme, it just seemed wrong to get a Deanna without a Lwaxana. Also, Photober was a great excuse to get on ebay and scratch the Star Trek figure-buying itch I haven’t been able to do anything with otherwise this entire damned year.
Lwaxana appears here based on the costume from the opening scene of “Menage A Troi” although the accessories (suppository-shaped suitcase, dinner-gong-with-hammer, wine glass, and dowry chest with embedded genuine soul-of-the-damned) all point to Lwaxana’s first appearance in season 1’s “Haven”. But what’re you gonna do? Anyway, some quick notes – The facial likeness to Majel Barrett is unusually good even within a line that was almost always at least decent for its time. Also this figure effectively does not have legs. The skirt is a single hollow chunk with boots molded poking out the bottom. They’re just enough to keep the edge of the skirt slightly above ground level, but nothing more. And yet even so they include a figure stand which is absolutely useless to the figure. As it turns out, shooting with Deanna and Lwaxana together was pretty fun. (and no, I didn’t cut the beam off that phaser; photoshop is a much cleaner removal option.)
We continue on course with more Star Trek for tomorrow – come back on the 22nd of Photober to find out what’s next!
