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Cylons consider themselves superior to humans, and they're obviously right: we have one Lucy Lawless, they have thousands. Case closed.
D'Anna Biers is one of the handful of journalists among what's left of the human race among Battlestar Galactica's rag-tag fleet of refugees. Despite being something of an anti-authority no-censorship type (or, so far as Adama's concerned, because of it)
she was chosen to film a documentary feature about the men and women serving aboard the Galactica, for all the fleet to see. She didn't hold back from showing the unattractive side of the ship's crew, their personal failings and lapses in judgement under stress, but she also revealed their heroism in continuing to do their difficult, dangerous jobs under harrowing conditions - which is an interesting point of view, considering that she's also Cylon model three.
She's also Lucy Lawless, who's welcome anywhere, let alone a show like Battlestar, which was already some of the best TV around.
Hopefully the full-size BSG figure line will get around to her sooner or later, but meanwhile she's got a Minimate. As a civilian her appearance is perfectly ordinary 21st Century, with no sci-fi gizmos or spacefaring uniform - if you want, Number Three can pull double duty as a Lucy Lawless Minimate too. Her outfit consists of jeans, which are just flat colour with no painted details, and a tank top which, unlike the earlier Gina Minimate, has straps that go all the way over her shoulders from front to back, as well as displaying the most generous cleavage the Cylon race has yet produced. The usual black detail lines on the torso do quite a reasonable job of pretending that a rectangular box is actually a curvaceous woman.
Her face is a decent likeness - granted, you'd be lucky to guess that it's Lucy based on sight alone,
but it's a Minimate after all, and there's nothing wrong with the face so far as character accuracy goes. Her expression is a triumphant, slightly vindictive grin - it could serve equally well for D'Anna getting a bit of footage that'll prove her point, or overseeing the subjugation of the human race, so full marks there. Her hair is a full and slightly unruly light brunette mop - the sculpt is good, although it sits out at the back in a way that looks a little odd if you see her from behind, but it really needed a highlight pass to catch D'Anna's sandy blonde. I don't recall if there's ever been a Minimate with a highlight, but this would have been a good time to start.
Articulation, as always with Minimates, is a standard set differentiated only by how their custom pieces restrict them. In this case, D'Anna's hair keeps her head, on a balljoint, from tilting to either side more than a fraction - that's about it. She has true ball and socket shoulders and hips (both capable of a bit of forward-backward tilt), peg elbows, swivel wrists, swivel waist, peg knees, and swivel ankles. Both feet have peg holes that fit - a touch loosely, but well enough - on Lego pegs. Her only accessory is a handgun (which fits her as Number Three rather than D'Anna), which is a regular contemporary weapon, rather than a Colonial military design.
D'Anna's partner, completing the set of Cylon women from the pre-Final Five lineup (with the earlier Gina/Six),
is Sharon Valerii, a.k.a. Number Eight. Specifically her clothes peg her as "Boomer," the Sharon who served on Galactica during the first season, after her "death" and download into a new body on Caprica. The body of her jacket is a separate piece, and its blockiness actually looks a bit more natural than that of a standard Minimate body - not that she's realistic-looking, but every little bit helps. A nice but easily-overlooked touch is a third pocket low on the side of the jacket, besides the main two on the chest.
By popping the head off (easily re-attachable) the jacket body can be removed - the arms remain the dark navy/indigo, but it doesn't look too bad, since the painted clothes on her torso are already two-tone, a burgundy shirt over a grey singlet. Her painted figure lines on the torso are minimal,
since Sharon is the least curvy of the Cylon women, but regardless of the jacket covering most of them, they're all there. She has a painted belt and buckle, but only on the front of her waist - with the jacket on, the sides and back aren't visible anyway.
Her face is a fair likeness by Minimate standards, and very expressive - she looks very disgruntled, which is pretty much spot-on for the character. The downturned lips, the glare, the heavy eyebrows furrowed in discontent... she's one pissed-off lady. Her hair is a single-tone brunette piece, and is an attractive sculpt, but very restrictive on movement, with edges over the front and back of her shoulders holding her head more or less immobile. Removing the jacket leaves her head a bit more free to move, but she's still limited there. While we're on articulation (which is, of course, basically identical to D'Anna's), the jacket also restricts the shoulder motion a little,
mainly in the forward-backward tilt, leaving them more akin to peg/swivel balljoints than the true balls they are.
Sharon's accessory is a picture frame, showing her beloved Galen Tyrol - a publicity set photo, rather than one of the actual photos shown in her episode ("Downloaded"), but close enough, and at this tiny scale it was probably a good choice to go with the larger, more recognisable shot of the character. The frame fits into her hand, and also has a small stand molded into the back of it, if you have a Minimate-sized table to put it on.
You don't see many all-girl Minimate packs, so this one was a pleasant surprise. Neither figure has anything that really makes them stand out from a crowd, or marks them as sci-fi, but they're well made and quite cute, and should decorate any desk well.
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