I remember years ago all the shops, Tesco, Asda, Smyths and Toys R Us were full of Doctor Who figures and sets but now hardly any of the shops have them!
I can only find them in Forbidden Planet or Amazon. Has anyone else noticed this?

I know B&M's still stock them, dirt cheap too. I was able to get this: http://www.toysrus.co.uk/Toys-R-Us/T...10%22%20Figure for £8.99 I believe it was just the other day. Wilkinsons still stock the regular Who figures but the selection is limited, but yes there is a decline in the popularity of the figures, to me anyhow. I don't buy any on a regular basis nowadays either, mainly because of the lack of quality figs out there and also due to my child losing interest in the show which itself is down to such a long wait for the show to return..

I know I personally never have bought a Doctor Who action figure lol.. And I don't know a lot of people besides me who watch dr who

As a collector I must agree. There are, I feel numerous reasons for this.

One, Doctor Who, like every toy line before it insisted it (exclusively) appealed to children as opposed to the collector, yet, the last two years have seen "Cyberman with hat" brought to a new level.

Two, the choice of character is piss poor. Take Matt Smith's second episode, "The Beast Below". Do we see a Liz Ten figure? No, have old man Hawthorne instead.

Three. The price has jumped, and is often erratic. Twenty-five years ago my Masters of the Universe and Turtles figures cost £3-4. Five years ago DW figures cost £7 - Now they cost a minimum of £10 - Asda charge £15

I've got a fair few figures, but I've bought only two (River Song, Silent) in the last 12 months or so because most of the newer figures are either crap ones that I don't want, or remakes/rereleases.

The only one I've wanted recently is the Omega figure, but they've packed it in a boxset with two other figures and I can't justify spending £45 on it just for one figure.

A Jo release is imminent, so I will be getting that.

Yes I was thinking this yesterday, in 2007 when my Doctor Who obsession was huge, I could get the figures practically in any store, supermarkets, newsagents, etc. (Funnily enough, the newsagents had the rarer figures too). I was able to get so many figures, The Doctor, Martha, Sarah Jane and K9, Capt.Jack, The Master, Rose, Daleks, Cybermen, Judoons. You get the idea. I had a huge collection of figures (however, about 2 years ago I threw so many of them out) and now I'm trying to rebuild me collection with new figures, I can't find them anywhere. Heck, even Argos, the shop that always had them only has the new 6 Daleks, they don't even stock the Doctor figure anymore. Like the OP said, the only place I can get my figures is in Forbidden Planet. I went to Tesco yesterday, I remember getting my Martha figure all those years ago in Tesco, it was amongst so many doctor who figures, but now, they only had the mini lego like figures of the Daleks and Silence. Its a bit frustrating. Hopefully for series 7, it'll pick up, I can't wait to get a Clara figure.

I have to agree with that the character choice is very poor. We have yet to see a Rory and they release too many figures of the Doctor and Daleks. There are lots of good characters and monsters they could release like Craig, the monster from the God Complex, the robots from the Girl Who Waited and we never got a damaged Dalek Caan or a Wilf. It's characters like that kids and collectors like myself want.

I know right, we get Uncle (Seriously why? He's a completely pointless character to add to a collection) yet we still don't have Rory.

I have a surprisingly heavy Pete's World Cyberman I bought as a souvenir from my visit to the DW Experience in London, which I'm very fond of.
The rest of my figures - Silurian, Silent, Weeping Angel, keyring gold Dalek and desktop patrolling Drone Paradigm Dalek were all bought for me, either as Christmas or birthday presents, from people who know that I really love Who. So I'm not in much a position to comment on pricing issues, lol.

I can't comment on the range of models - I don't really collect them deliberately - but the ones I have I'd say are pretty nice quality. Although the Silurian is precariously balanced and the Silent's left arm bends really weirdly forwards.

My guess is that it comes down to the artist agreeing to sign away the rights to use their image.

As ever, you should see a flurry of new action figures after the new series. In the meantime, I can't walk into a Tesco without being confronted by hundreds of Doctor Who mini figures, playsets, Dalek keychains, screwdrivers...

There were way too many variants last year, we didn't even get a Rory one. Though supposedly, one is due soon enough.

If that's true, I can't wait for the series 7 figures, Rory and Clara! Yipee! I also think we may get Vastra, Jenny and the Sontaran figures too.

Oh me. I need to get a Silent as well as Rory and Clara.

Same, I haven't seen the Silence in Forbidden Planet at all. But I'm also working on rebuilding my old collection that I threw out for some reason, just got the Judoon today!

This is a shame, when they were first launched the figures were excellent quality and we seemed to be getting lots of releases which were and still are far superior to the Star Wars/Marvel/DC action figure line which look very cheap and tend to last a couple of months.

Unfortunately there are many issues that add to 'decline' of the action figures.
Rising cost.
Lack of figures from the Matt Smith era
The regular Forbidden Planet only - special editions which are too costly for children, let alone collectors.

I do however believe that best addition from Character was the not-LEGO but fits perfectly with LEGO. This is now my sons favourite as his play universe truly is endless where Lego is concerned. Yes it was in my living room where I witnessed the DALEKS destroying the Sith Lord - Darth Vader in order to take over the Universe.

I don't think there's a lack of figures from the Matt Smith era but too much time was wasted last year on variants when figures for other characters/monsters should've been released too - Rory (regular version, Centurion), Vastra, Jenny, Dorium, Madame Kovarian, Headless Monks, Handbots, Minotaur, Wooden King/Queen, etc.

they have been saying that for months now

I agree last year we got something like 4 different Silence, 3 different Cybermen, a pointless pack of Cybermats and then the whole set was released again with silly flesh packs.
There was so many interesing characters last year we didn't get one figure of them.

Forbidden Planet is a major problem with the action figures because they are charging a rip off price and their also getting too many exclusives. For instance last Christmas I had to pay something like £50 for the boxset with Omega.

I know.

It has gotten tedious, hasn't it?

The Classic figures are doing well. I collect them. I hear that the 6 talking Daleks released on sunday have sold out at most Argos shops. The regular line may not be doing well but the classics are.

On Tuesday I went to Argos to buy one, they had sold out in my 2 nearest stores

I tend to only buy at Forbidden Planet as I am only interested in getting the classic series figures. However all their exclusives have become so expensive and for course you can't get them cheaper elsewhere. Though eBay has a lot of stuff.

It happens with every acton figure range.

A sudden upturn in sales leads the manufacturers to expand the range.
...this then leads to less sales of each figure in the range as the consumer has to choose which they'd prefer.
This feeds back to the manufacturers/distributors as a slight downturn in popularity.
They then see the range as being on it's last legs, so they try and milk it for a greater profit margin while it's got some life left in it by making variations on the same figures in different colours (lowering production costs by using the same molds for different looking figures) and adding more basic designs of peripheral characters to the range.
What happens then? ... The range becomes less unique and aesthetically appealling and is taken for granted by the consumer and disregarded in favour of something else.

When all's said and done it's the capitalist mentality of those holding the licenses that drills a merchandise product into the ground.

As for the cost of the figures ....... five years ago when i was buying figures for my son, I was getting em for between £3 and £8 from forbidden planet when some of the same figures were being bought on ebay for upwards of £15 by collectors who are too obsessive to miss a single figure from the range and collect too much crap over the internet to have time to go looking for the item at a decent price in the shops ..... so if collectors don't like the prices, blame yourselves!

Whenever I see these action figures in shops (not just DW), I can't help thinking of that scene in Spaceballs where Colonel Sandurz catches Dark Helmet playing with his 'dolls' again... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtPzI...eature=related last gag)