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The figure
for this holiday season is the
festively attired Counselor Deanna Troi
in her burgundy-colored suit. This
figure was released in 1993 and 1994
and was one of the second series of
figures based on The Next Generation TV
series. The outfit depicted was worn by
the character for most of the second
season and continued to be worn
sporadically throughout the rest of the
seven year TV run, providing fantasy
material for Lt. Barclay and other
lonely members of the Enterprise crew
years before Seven of Nine). The second
series of Next Generation figures was a
huge assortment and featured many
popular characters such as Q, K'Ehleyr,
Sela, Dathon ("Darmok"), the three
Original Series guest characters and
numerous others. Most of these figures
were issued twice, once in 1993 with a
Skybox Trading Card and then again in
1994 with a "Space Cap" Pog. Remember
pogs? Me either. This series also
established Playmates' tendancy to
re-use figures repeatedly. Seven of the
ten original Next Generation figures
were slightly altered to appear as they
did during the first and second seasons
of TNG (retooling on the uniform
shoulders, paint changes, etc.) and
re-released as a part of this
assortment. Troi in the Burgundy Suit
was one of these repaints.
The second
Deanna figure differed from it's first
series counterpart basically only in
color. The first Troi figure was cast
and decorated in the violet/lavender
color outfit she wore on and off from
the third season of TNG onward. As with
the actual costumes, the outfits were
nearly identical in construction and no
retooling of the figure's sculpt was
required. The figure has good
articulation and comes from the time
before Playmates began to seriously
skimp on paint operations. Ironically,
the "make-up" paint job on this figure
is the source of my only really
negative comment. While there are at
least five paint operations used on the
head of the figure, the result looks
like Tammi Faye Baker supervised the
application. I believe I referred to
this figure in an earlier review as the
"painted-whore" Troi figure. The first
series one wasn't great in it's
decoration, but this one... yikes. By
the way, the "decent articulation" on
this figure doesn't seem to have ruined
the overall look of the figure. Plus
she can sit down! My Deanna Troi in her
Burgundy Outfit figure was purchased at
the Duck Creek (or "Crik") Mall
Walgreen's in Bettendorf, IA (the home
of John Oosterhuis, known to you as the
father of Dave "Davd" Oosterhuis)
during a trip back to see the folks in
Davenport, IA.
Although this
isn't a great figure, it's impressive
that Troi had two figures to her credit
so early on in the production of the
TNG figures. Bev Crusher didn't even
make her first appearance until the
second series of figures. Overall,
Playmates did a pretty good job of
producing female characters, which was
somewhat surprising, given the
manufacturer-mindset that "boys don't
want to buy toys of GIRLS - eww." While
this figure hasn't done poorly among
collectors, it does seem to fetch lower
values than many of the figures in the
same series. Unopened, Deanna will
fetch an average of $13.00 (with Skybox
Trading Card) or $25.00 (with "Space
Cap") on the secondary market. Opened
and intact, the figure will average
$6.00. Deanna Troi in her Burgundy
Outfit features standard articulation
at the neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows,
waist, hips and knees.
As previously
stated, this Deanna is a repaint of the
first series figure. Subsequent Troi
figures have used neither the head (new
sculpts were created) nor the body of
this figure (although the body might
conceivably work for a figure of the
first season "hair-in-a-severe-bun"
Troi). Don't look for any more repaints
in the future unless there are new
developments in the Playmates
situation.
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