LEGO Wicked 75683 Glinda & Elphaba's Dormitory review

75683 Glinda & Elphaba's Dormitory is a set for all people; perfect both as a display piece and for active play, and filled with neat details that can be easily pulled out, rearranged, and interacted with.

While not the largest of the LEGO Wicked offerings, 75683 Glinda & Elphaba's Dormitory is likely the one that experienced builders will get more out of, given that its construction and basic structure is so satisfying to build and admire. With a costume change for its two included mini-dolls, this set offers a variety of different play and display options, and is a real treat for anyone who loves Wicked.

Release: October 1, 2024 Price: £59.99 / $69.99 / €69.99 Pieces: 1743 Mini-dolls: 2 (plus two additional outfits) LEGO: Order now

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The goal with a set like 75683 Glinda & Elphaba's Dormitory is straightforward but often tricky to get right: this set, a self-contained diorama/playspace showing off Elphaba and Glinda’s Shiz university dorm room, is designed to be all things to all people.

It’s not always easy to create a LEGO set that is both filled with intricate details and has enough breathing room to allow for play, but 75683 Glinda & Elphaba's Dormitory absolutely nails the dual-purpose of this set. The luggage design of the model works well as a display piece on the shelf either closed or open, and not only does the set widen out enough to allow for a lot of access to its inner nooks and crannies, practically every piece of furniture within the space is attached by a jumper stud, so can be easily repositioned or moved should anyone wish to take things out and get a closer look at them (or just spill the set out into a wider space for better play access).

This is not the largest or the most expansive of the Wicked sets, but it is probably the one that is going to please an older or more experienced LEGO fan the most. There is charm and beauty to it, the build techniques are satisfying, and the finished model is suitable for practically any purpose a LEGO fan may have.

'You terrible mean thing, you're pretty'

The decision to go with mini-dolls rather than minifigures for LEGO Wicked has been a point of some contention among the LEGO fan community, and there’s no real sense throwing any more fuel on to that particular fire in this review. That said, the mini-dolls are a big part of 75683 Glinda & Elphaba's Dormitory, and it’s hard to find many mini-dolls that are of a higher quality than these.

It’s important to note that at the point in the story that this set represents, the Wicked Witch of the West has not yet reached her apotheosis, so the long cape and broomstick are reserved for 75684 Welcome to Emerald City. Glinda, too, isn’t in her poofy-dressed final form.

Unlike the smaller 75681 Glinda, Elphaba & Nessarose at Shiz University, though, the characters do get an approximation of their most iconic outfits, with Elphaba dressed in black and sporting her famous hat, while Glinda comes with a fancy party dress. The pair also have a set of pyjamas that they can change into.

The one major downside to this set is that these are costume changes, rather than additional mini-dolls. This means that there are two sets of torsos and legs for each character, and only one head apiece. There’s a convenient storage box up top for whichever outfit isn’t being worn, but it does mean that you’re stuck with extra decapitated mini-doll parts where it might have been nice to simply have two extra complete mini-dolls instead.

No one mourns the QR code

If there’s a sour note in the otherwise very well-crafted LEGO Wicked offerings, it’s the decision to include QR codes on stickers in each of the sets.

When the sets initially arrived for review, these QR codes, when scanned, led to a 404 error. During the lead-up to the release of the film Wicked: Part One in cinemas, the QR code directs a smartphone or other device to a countdown clock on the LEGO website, with a message reading ‘Come back again on November 22nd when we reveal the full pink and green world of Oz! See you soon, witches!’ (There’s also a brickfilm version of the trailer for Wicked which could also be viewed on YouTube).

During a brief window in the final months of 2024 and presumably a year or so after that, it’s been promised that these QR codes will instead point to digital content which, based on prior LEGO.com offerings, will hardly be substantial, before inevitably the LEGO Group will remove all traces of this from its website and the QR codes will yet again lead to a digital dead-end. Thus LEGO elements that will potentially be used and played with for decades and decades to come feature a digital code that is not yet fully functional, and will only ever be useful for a tiny period of time compared to the length of the brick’s lifespan.

The LEGO Group has long sought ways to integrate digital play into the brick building experience, without ever finding a strategy that works. Whether it's a relatively successful but now sadly obsolete offering like Hidden Side, or a failed launch like VIDIYO, the universal truth is that these digital offers are always short-lived and never manage to last very long (the one exception being LEGO Super Mario, but it’s hard to tell how much of that theme is popular because of its unique digital/physical hybrid approach, and how much is just due to a particularly potent intellectual property).

LEGO Wicked’s digital interactivity feels particularly low-effort, given that its QR code won’t start properly working until the sets have been on store shelves for almost two months, but even if this was a bold new innovation in convincing children to stare at screens while playing with LEGO, the LEGO Group seems perpetually oblivious to the fact that this isn’t something parents want from the LEGO sets they buy their children.

LEGO is one of the only screen-free creative activities that is generally guaranteed to be a hit with children, and the fact that the LEGO Wicked sets actively encourage builders to pause part-way through building and instead start tapping at a tablet screen is not a major selling point for anyone who will be looking to buy this set for an eight-year-old.

Of course, while these QR codes are not going to help the sales figures for 75683 Glinda & Elphaba's Dormitory, they're not going to hurt the set either, because most people are going to completely ignore that this functionality exists.

Which is fair, because at the time of writing this review, the functionality doesn’t actually exist anyway. It’ll work briefly starting on November 22, before being lost to the annals of time as soon as these sets stop being the latest new thing. The QR code is also a sticker, so you can always just leave it off the LEGO altogether. Even if that is a little bit wicked...

This set was provided for review by the LEGO Group.

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Our honest opinion: A satisfying build with excellent details, beautiful mini-dolls and an accessible use of space that will suit any LEGO Wicked fan’s needs regardless of age or building experience.