I must confess, I never watched Charmed - well, parts of a couple of episodes here and there for a laugh, but never seriously. Nor did I have any interest in collecting action figures of the three Charmed Ones, Piper, Phoebe, and Paige (or Prue) - they're just women in everyday outfits, nothing eye-catching if you're not already a fan of them. But the three of them dressed as Amazons? Yup. I didn't have especially high hopes for this trio of figures when I ordered them online - they're not recent - mainly because the photos of them showed them just standing there looking immobile. Well, that doubt was laid to rest once they arrived and I'd set to breaking them free of their plastic prisons. The Charmed Ones are articulated very nearly to Street Fighter standards - same company behind them, of course - and that makes all the difference. By the standards of action figures based on live actors, their sculpts and paint jobs are adequate, though not exceptional: they bear a passing resemblance to their characters, though the likeness is only really in broad terms, and they're painted well enough to pass muster at a glance, but not with the kind of painstakingly crisp work seen on really excellent figures. Paige (I think?) is also rather noticeably pale, compared to her sisters (of whom Phoebe is slightly more tanned) - and I gather her hair was still coloured copper in that episode, but I wouldn't know one way or the other there. But the articulation... ball joint necks, ball joint shoulders, swivel biceps, double peg elbows, swivel wrists, swivel waists, ball joint hips, swivel thighs, double peg knees, swivel boots, peg ankles, peg toes. With that much articulation, they don't just stand there - they can take practically any pose you could reasonably want them in, with their bodies and limbs postured exactly as they should be. Being able to take such naturalistic poses gives them a great sense of realism, and elevates them far above their sculpt/paint standard. Unmissably, the girls also come with a three-part diorama, which is an Amazon throne room, or something along those lines. When assembled (and locked together using the plastic clips that come with it - you can actually carry the whole thing around in one piece) it's eight inches tall by fifteen across, easily big enough for the three figures - in fact, it could even stand a couple more (Xena and Gabrielle in Amazon garb would be the obvious choice). The walls are stone, with vines and moss growing on them - it's a little Hollywood-set-ish, but that's not out of character for Charmed, and the paintwork is decent. The flaming torches are a nice touch, with transparent flame that shades from pale yellow to red, which looks quite good at a glance, though the colour division is a bit obvious when you study it, and the painted area of the wall is crisp, and has a nice Greco-Roman feel to it. The dais is just big enough to accomodate all three chairs - one solid throne, two Roman-style - but I prefer them spaced out, and there's plenty of room either side of it. The diorama's various pieces are the only accessories the figures have, but when you get all three and put it together, it's very much worth it. Credit to SOTA, too, for giving Leo, the fourth figure in the wave, a little diorama of his own, rather than making it a four-part scene - they must have known the three girls would be the figures most buyers would be after, and it reflects well on them that they resisted the temptation to force everyone to buy Leo just to complete the base.