Welsh toy company Dapol announces the release of a Doctor Who Transmat Dalek action figure. Essentially the same mold and tooling as with their existing Dalek action figures, these toys are to be molded in clear plastic with a colorful “mutant” inside. 
As 2000 came to a close, many wondered if Dapol had any plans to expand its Doctor Who range beyond a veritable army of Daleks. At most, the new Daleks represented only minor changes to the basic mold Dapol has been issuing in a myriad of different color schemes since 1987 – possibly the most enduring action figure form since the repeatedly-reissued C-3PO and R2-D2 figures from Kenner’s original Star Wars line. And such figures as the Perceptor and Flame-Thrower Daleks required nothing more than a new limb, without any changes to the original body mold.
Daleks are fun – if they weren’t, Dapol wouldn’t have rolled the mutated menaces out in over a dozen different permutations – but so are numerous other characters from the 37-year history of Doctor Who. Countless TV villains – and five lead actors who played the Doctor – have yet to be represented in Dapol’s collection. And the exciting possibility of licensing characters from the novels and Audio Adventures doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone there.
Rather, Dapol had plans to release another Dalek box set in 2001, consisting of the Special Weapons Dalek and the Emperor Dalek, both as seen in 1988’s Remembrance of the Daleks (but no word on whether the latter would open to reveal the last vestiges of Davros). Though these two characters are partially shaped like your average Dalek, each also has quite unique features which would need to be sculpted from scratch. The Special Weapons Dalek would have needed an intricate paint job, as the “real thing” featured lots of dried-up ooze, grime and battle damage. However, the original Dalek molds were planned to return as well, this time with voice chips which scream “Exterminate!” whenever the friction drive is wound up by rolling the Dalek backwards. Dapol announced no other new Doctor Who toys, with the sole exception of an “authentic accurately-sized replica” – again with a sound chip – of the Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver.
In July 2001, Dapol announced that it would cease all production of Doctor Who action figures, and embarked on a range of cold-cast four-inch-scale statues instead; mere months after that, the BBC elected not to renew Dapol’s license to make Doctor Who toys. This Dalek was among the last Doctor Who action figures until the launch of the new series in 2005.
ToyBox review by Earl Green