Toy Review: Time Lords Spinning Tardis

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So fun story: I’m getting married this summer to a wonderful woman, with whom I share many common interests, including Doctor Who, although she does not quiet share my love of Tom Baker, but such is life…

While watching TV one evening I mentioned how cool it would be to have the local bakery do an Ace of Cakes style Tardis Cake, and she told me that if I wanted our wedding cake to be Tardis shaped she would be very happy with that.

Which meant 2 things. 1. I have found the world’s most perfect woman, and 2. I needed a Tardis model to give to the baker. Maybe in England you could say Tardis cake and they would know what you mean. In Michigan, well, you won’t have as much luck.

And it is for this purpose that I purchased the spinning Tardis model I’m about to review. Onwards!

The Packaging:

This comes in a rather nice plastic box. The Tardis itself is held in by a single screw on the bottom, and everything else is held together with nice plastic liners, which means you could keep this on a shelf in the box without any problem.

The Sculpt:

This piece has two parts. I’ll begin with the base.

The base has a very simple matte black plastic finish which houses the two magnets which keep the Tardis afloat. The front of the bottom has the 11th Doctor’s logo stamped on in, as does the very top of the base. At the back of the top there is a light and a sensor. The red light tells you that your Tardis is detected and the magnets are turned on. The sensor monitors the light in the room, and if it is dark for an extended period of time it turns the magnet off, dropping the Tardis onto the base to save the battery power.

Speaking of battery power, this item runs on 6 AA batteries. What is slightly irritating is that it comes with an outlet for a wall plug, but it does not come with the actual plug itself. Instead, the instruction manual explains which plug to buy. For 40 bucks they really could have kicked in the power cord and just done away with all of the batteries.

The Tardis:

This is actually a very neat little sculpt. It is built to scale, and even has a wood grain finish on it. The windows and door signs are stickers, but in this case that works, and there is no hint that they are not adhering to the surface well. The light at the top is painted, but has no real slop to speak of.

If you buy this, odds are it will take you a few tries to get it to hover right. If you lift it too high it clicks to the bottom of the top of the base, and if it is not high enough it just drops. Once you get it into place though it does do a nice job of spinning around in a fairly stable orbit. You might need a little practice, but once it gets going it stays going for a while.

The orbit is actually stable enough that when I slid the base across my desk the Tardis just followed along spinning instead of falling out. And when it auto shuts off the Tardis drops neatly to the base without cracking or falling over.

The Verdict:

This is a neat little toy, and looks cool on your desk. It also works well and is a very nice sculpt. At about 40 bucks it is a bit pricey, but if you have as many nerdy friends as I do it is sure to make you a figure of envy for a few days.