4441 Police Dog Van

One of the sets that I received for Christmas was part of the 2012 line-up of new City sets, though in this case "City" is a misnomer because the "Cops and Robbers" theme has in fact left the city and taken to the forests. This has been cause for excitement in portions of AFOL-dom because of the new bears found in a couple of sets, and because moving into "State Trooper" territory is one of most drastic moves that LEGO's police force has ever made.



As you can see, though, set 4441 Police Dog Van does not come with a bear. What id *does* come with is a "State Trooper/Sheriff/Not-Mountie" in a van with separate compartments for dogs and criminals (the dogs have a far more finished accommodation), a car for the criminal, and the entrance to an abandoned gold mine.

Of the three major components of the set, the gold mine is the least interesting, though the parts that comprise it are excellent and the bee/wasp's nest is a nice, albeit simple, touch. The dog van is better: a robust design with my first set of the new, larger tires for the now-classic wheel-well, and a good assortment of parts. The main problem with the van that I've noted is that, depending on the exact alignment of parts, opening the door to the dogs' compartment can pop off the roof over the driver.

That leaves the car, which I found to be a lot more fun than I expected from the pictures. If spaceships are swooshable, what are vehicles? I'm going to go with "vroomable," which is exactly what this car is. It's like a badass version of 8402 Sports Car, which I also own and find quite vroomable.

Unfortunately, the felon driving this presumably stolen car is a bit lacklustre; although I like the grey jacket-over-striped-prison shirt torso, one begins to run out of uses for criminals in striped shirts and tuques quickly, and after getting two in the Advent Calendar right before Christmas, I was doubly disinterested in him. Fortunately, it was easy to return his car to the dealership where another fig got a great deal, and the "State Trooper" fig is more than awesome enough to make up for him.