n season three of the English comedy science-fiction show Red Dwarf, the remaining crew on board the eponymous mining ship, Dave Lister, Arnold Rimmer, Cat and the robot Kryten, board one of the ship's portable shuttles, Starbug 1, and roam the universe. Starbug 1 is a buglike shuttle made up of three spherical shapes with four landing legs and two large engines at the back.
Product Enterprise Ltd., based in the U.K., has created an amazing electronic playset based on this famous spacecraft. This toy is highly detailed and intricately painted to present a highly desirable collectible at a toy's price, albeit a fairly expensive toy. Similar quality collectible models I've seen are priced in the several hundreds of dollars, including various models from Product Enterprise itself.
Measuring approximately 9 inches in length and over 5 inches tall, the model is made of tough, high-quality plastic and sports a paint job that is better than almost any production-run toy I've ever seen. The exterior is painted a rich green with airbrushed dark areas the likes of which are rare in something that wasn't a highly expensive collector's item.
Add to this the fact that the Starbug 1 toy plays electronic samples of dialogue from the series, and you have a very special toy that would make any fellow fan of Red Dwarf envious. Another feature is a spring-loaded firing probe that shoots out from underneath the ship.
But to top off this marvelous item, the two front spheres open up to reveal a detailed interior playset that includes bed quarters, a laundry area, the bridge and a common kitchen area. The set also includes 4 one-inch-tall figures of Lister, Rimmer, Cat and Kryten.
The item comes packaged in a hexagonal cardboard form with plastic protective covers for the Starbug. The packaging is printed to resemble a Red Dwarf landing pad, with the familiar red walls of Red Dwarf's docking bays, which makes for an impressive display base for your Starbug.
A collectible at a toy's price
Most toy spaceships I've seen in large production runs are painted in low detail, often with masked areas over an infused color plastic base. And they try to approximate the look of the actual item. This is the first one I've seen that actually airbrushes the dark patches of wear and gradated shading all over the body of the ship.
If I didn't know it had a playset inside, I would have guessed this was a solid model designed only as a showpiece.
However, the top half of the front spheres hinge up to reveal a very colorful interior that includes two pilot seats, a laundry room, beds (which the small figures can fit into) and a kitchen area, which includes a toaster. Push down the slice of bread and a picture of Holly the ship's hologram pops up in a window in the wall.
Pressing a button on the top of the large sphere triggers several sound clips from the series, including "All hands on deck! Swirly-thing alert!" and "Step up to Red Alert"—"Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb!" as well as around a half-dozen other samples.
So is this the perfect toy? Pretty close. The thing that worries me a bit about it is the two antenna shafts that project from the "shoulders" of the Starbug. These measure about an inch in length and are quite thin. And where many toy manufacturers would mold these from softer plastic to prevent breakage, these are molded of the same hard plastic as the rest of the ship.
While this allows for consistency and looks better than softer plastic, the proverb about the tree breaking that does not bend with the wind may apply here. These have no leeway. If this ship is not handled with care, those plastic antennae will, I'm sure, break off with no apology. The same goes with a rear-mounted antenna cluster that is thicker than these two, but still could break fairly easily.
