Bonus Edition: Talarian Observation Craft

Alas this is going to be a disappointment.

Even from just seeing this one in the box I was fairly convinced that the Talarian Observation Craft was going to be collection "filler" material. This is more relevant with the point that we've already had this ship in its more recognisable (later) form as the Tamarian ship from Darmok.

It's also very, very small. I guess that the vertical and horizontal dimensions forced it to be a certain size in line with the box but hey, it is what it is. In fact it's even packaged on its side.

At only just over the size of the black stand, the Observation Craft must clock in as one of the smallest (and probably most expensive) models released. 

Screentime for this ship wasn't extensive so comparisons have to be made more versus the CG images in the magazine. That said, the Talarian craft has a subtle two tone paint scheme that you can just catch in the light with some of its panels in a slightly more glossy finish. 

To be fair, surface detail is a little lacking here on both the metal and plastic sections of the main hull. The grilled portions of the two small rectangular wings are pretty clear but the mechanics that trim along the edges of the hull are barely raised. The scale utterly works against this ship with the differing levels of the hull surface blending a little too easily into each other. This in turn means that the darker brown paint detailing along the hull is patchy at best with the CG of the magazine showing up a lot of the challenges on this small scale ship.

At least the markings on the two vertical sail sections are spot on. At least. It also seems that the underside plastic insert has a degree more definition to some of its elements than the topside. Look in particular at the two pairs of circular elements two-thirds of the way along the hull and see how their shape seems that bit sharper in the plastic.

The same I think can be said for the grille work towards the nose. Now it's not that I don't like this ship. It's one of those I was surprised didn't show up in the 180 issues of the series instead of other multiples we endured that could have been left as bonuses. However, for the price Eaglemoss is asking (£19.99) it's a lot for something this small (also looking at you, Shuttles...)

The magazine recounts the events of TNG's Suddenly Human while also covering off the background of the Talarians and their various spacecraft. The designing section is awfully underwhelming and feels like it cuts off halfway through the story as you turn over after two pages into a piece on redresses of the model. Now I always love to see what else these things turn up as and this is no exception since it did the rounds quite impressively over the years.

Finally there's a much belated article on exec producer and writer Jeri Taylor who forged a good deal of Voyager's identity as well as key episodes from TNG such as Suddenly Human, Final Mission and the seminal Unification.

One hundred percent this is a completist ship that will leave a lot of collectors disappointed. It could have and should have been bigger to truly realise some of the detail but I guess this is all we're going to get. You're probably better digging out its incarnation from Darmok to appreciate the detail.

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