I opened up Jedi Luke, Chewbacca and Darth Vader tonight. Initial thoughts:

Chewbacca is terrific, the sculpt and paint apps really seem to mesh well here and even the elognated neck isn't too annoying. The eyes on mine were pretty on point, but still seemed to be the weak point somehow. Maybe the pupils are too small? Sounds silly but it's the only thing that really bugs me about the figure.

Jedi Luke is growing on me more than I thought he would.  You can get a good range of poses out of him, and the two handed lightsaber grab is no problemo. The face sculpt itself is ok, but again the eyes are the weak point here. He's got a real case of puppy dog eyes, but even worse, no matter how you position his head he always looks like he's just staring brainlessly at nothing. Obi Wan had a similar thing going on. I think a scowl would maybe come across better.

Vader bugs me. I noticed in the package his helmet was slightly ajar and after opening him I found I cant really keep the mask pressed down tight to the bottom piece. It keeps floating up and looks stupid. A separate old Anakin head would have been a much better way to go. On the bright side, the cape sewn through the chestplate isn't as atrocious as I suspected it might be. I was able to drape it over his shoulders in such a way as to hide the strings. I gotta jimmy with those inner robes though, they definitely do not look right around the codpiece. And yeah, he needs a neck. It's an ok figure overall, I just wish they had done a little better job with arguably the central character of the whole franchise.

Stopped by a Walgreens after work that had nothing but did encounter a helpful manager who kindly printed out an inventory summary for all the local stores showing any stock for the SW 6" BS. That led me to another nearby store where I was able to get someone to pull a few from the back for me. Apparently around here they are only getting them in groups of 3. I got Darth Vader, Chewbacca, and Jedi Luke. 

I have a friend holding on to an extra Proto Boba for me, so now I just need to track down a couple of Black Pauldron Sandtroopers.

Look forward to busting these out tonight!

It's a number of different things IMO, viewer fatigue is certainly a factor, but the writing has definitely changed over the years. (Which makes sense as guys come and go, like Conan O'Brien) The early episodes have more of an edge, more biting satire. The newer stuff is shmaltzy by comparison.

The main problem now IMHO is the proliferation of "celebrity" guests. They rarely leaned on that schtick back in the day, but now it has become a staple of almost every episode. Enough already!

Hackgate 2014!

A guy from 4chan apparently hacked into Apple's iCloud and is slowly releasing a bunch of celebrity nudes. Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton have been the biggest drops so far and apparently there are many, many more.

It's like looking at a car crash, I know it's bad and I should feel bad but dammit I'm gonna look.

Those Kate Upton photos made my whole weekend.  I could have done without seeing Verlander's naked ass though.

Picked up the Charred Zombie for $10 at a local comic con today. Will be an opener.

I got my Anakins and Clone Troopers today, perfectly packaged and right on time. Just opened them up and start futzing around with them.

Anakin from the neck down is actually a pretty dope figure, I especially like the blend of soft goods and plastic around the waist. I haven't had any trouble posing him or getting him to stay standing either, he can do a pretty wide range of stances. But eesh, that head sculpt is as underwhelming in hand as in photos. I ended up going with the Sith head for display purposes, but neither really seems up to snuff with the other human sculpts so far. And yeah, they both sit too high on the neck.

Clone Trooper is about as expected too, at least for me: solid but unspectacular. It's a nice sculpt, mine is a little loose around the torso but not terrible. The limited range of motion doesn't bother me too much as I sort of consider it to be more or less realistic (figure these guys probably had a hard time moving around in that early gear). I'm thinking I will probably stick with two of these guys and not army build them beyond that. I'm sure there are plenty more iterations in the pipeline starting with the Sergeant anyway.

This is probably my least favorite wave so far, but certainly worth picking up and not terrible efforts overall, just not among their best results in this line to date, IMHO.

I saw a Jakks Pacific YouTube video for their 20" line today and they showed 20" versions of Zeb, the Inquisitor, and the Rebels Stormtrooper. I think this helps me to confine my purchases to just the animated stuff. That will be more than enough sounds like. Ironic that these figures have more articulation than their 4" counterparts.