Mystery Science Theater 3000 is BACK!

[Totoro Man]

that is a horrible cast.

well, to be fair, the cast was never the biggest selling point of the original show. none of those people were good actors! some of them were down-right bland (Mike) or obnoxious (Pearl) in front of the camera. what really made the show work was the gags and obscure references people would make while watching the films. the skits had rare moments of brilliance, but overall, were the weakest part of the show.

[AndrewCrossett]

I thought I would hate having Pearl as the main Mad on the show, because she was so shrill and obnoxious... but once she got Professor Bobo and Observer in there, they really grew on me. I hate change, but I was ultimately OK with all of the changes on the show over the years.

I also mostly enjoyed the host segments. 90 minutes of unbroken movie-riffing would have been too much.

[AndrewCrossett]

Initial thoughts based on the backer screening. Although I'm not really sure the concept of "spoilers" applies here, I'll put this in spoiler tags just in case.

spoilers:

This first episode was... OK. Pretty good. A solid B+. I'd rank it about equal to an average episode of the old show. The new voices aren't really a problem. The new Crow sounds quite a bit like the old Crow. The new Servo sounds different, but easy enough to get used to. Occasionally I had trouble distinguishing Jonah's and Servo's voices in the theater. The new Gypsy has an actual female voice, isn't dumb, and comes down from the ceiling instead of slithering around on the floor. I could have done without the extended "origin story" at the beginning. It seemed very "un-MST3K," and Joel and Mike didn't need those on-screen intros... it was all explained well enough in the opening theme song. I suspect the main purpose of this segment was to give some high-dollar Kickstarter backers their chance to appear as characters. Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt are OK as the new Mads. The new evil base, Moon 13 (located on the dark side of the moon) has a hell of a lot more extras running around than Deep 13 ever did. Patton Oswalt has hair like Frank Conniff's on the old show and is named "TV's Son of TV's Frank," but normally gets called "Max." (A reference to Norma Desmond's butler in Sunset Boulevard, I guess.) I suppose out of respect for Conniff they didn't want this character to be called "Frank." There are a lot more host segments than there were on the old show. They brought back the Invention Exchange and the viewers' letters segments. The episode has commercial bumpers like the old show did... I don't know why, on a Netflix show. The movie is "Reptilicus," Denmark's attempt at a kaiju movie. About what you'd expect. Now, on to the problems. The biggest one is that these new people don't seem to understand that Less Is More. There's too many riffs, sometimes delivered so quickly you can barely understand them and can't process one until they're on to the next one. In some places, especially where there's no dialogue in the movie, they talk continuously for several minutes at a time. I know you have a lot of great material, guys, but you need to pick the best jokes and close your mouths occasionally. Some of the individual riffs are too long as well... more like rapid-fire monologues than wisecracks. Servo has the ability to fly within the theater now, and does so on about three occasions to interact with things and characters on the movie screen. It's really quite distracting and annoying, actually. And sometimes Gypsy dips down in front of the screen to do something and deliver a joke. I don't like it... the riffers should stay in their seats and not try to make themselves part of the action. That's what the host segments are for. Joel has said that things got smoother with the season as they got into the subsequent episodes, so hopefully it only gets better from here. If they toned down the overdone riffing and stayed in their seats, it would be fine.

end of spoilers

[CJStriker]

This is going to be a MAJOR MST3K Week!

We have the 1st episode on Netflixs Tomorrow and then Both Tonight and on 4/18/17 we have RiffTraz's Doing a Show of the Movie Samurai Cop!


https://www.fathomevents.com/events/...ve-samurai-cop

[AndrewCrossett]

All 14 episodes will be up tomorrow. Which certainly isn't my favorite way of doing it... I don't binge watch, and people are going to be discussing (and spoiling) the whole season all at once. I wish they could just release a new one every week for 14 weeks.

[upgrayedd]

Watched "Manos" Hands of Fate.... again.... Still funny. Almost makes me feel sorry for the work the news guys are going to have to do to compare to the previous.

"The playful side of Torgo"

[AndrewCrossett]

I'm gradually collected all the Shout Factory DVD releases. I've also been working through the free streaming ones I got for backing the Kickstarter. Including the first two KTMA episodes, which were... interesting. Kind of lame, but interesting.

I'm going to miss the more laid-back riffing style of the old shows.

[AndrewCrossett]

Watched the second episode, "Cry Wilderness."

I found it quite a bit funnier than "Reptilicus." The riffs are still done in rapid-fire style, but they seem to have gotten their timing down a little better so you can actually understand what they're saying instead of it devolving into "blahblahblahblahblah" like it did at times in the first ep.

It's not easy to write 90 minutes of almost continual jokes and have 80% of them at least provoke a smile. And I laughed out loud a few times at this one, which I don't think I ever did at the first.

REALLY glad they didn't dumb down their references for this new show, too, or aim it exclusively at millennials. (Does anybody under 30 remember what Fudgie the Whale was?)

[MasterOfMagnetism]

I had started watching the old episodes that were on Netflix and while I was enjoying some episodes as someone in his 20s I definitely felt like I would enjoy a new version of this show more, with more current references and jokes.

Watched the second episode, "Cry Wilderness."

I found it quite a bit funnier than "Reptilicus." The riffs are still done in rapid-fire style, but they seem to have gotten their timing down a little better so you can actually understand what they're saying instead of it devolving into "blahblahblahblahblah" like it did at times in the first ep.

It's not easy to write 90 minutes of almost continual jokes and have 80% of them at least provoke a smile. And I laughed out loud a few times at this one, which I don't think I ever did at the first.

REALLY glad they didn't dumb down their references for this new show, too, or aim it exclusively at millennials. (Does anybody under 30 remember what Fudgie the Whale was?)

The second episode was a vast improvement over the first. The "Homo Erectus Galifianakis" joke at the start had me laughing harder than anything in the first episode.

Did anyone else notice that Jonah messed up a line in one of the host segments from the Time Travelers episode? I played it over a few times thinking; "how the hell did they let this get through?" You'd think they'd have done another take.

[AndrewCrossett]

Actually a lot of the references they did in the 90's were dated and obscure... kind of like they were challenging you to get it. In the earliest episodes (KTMA and season 1) they seemed reluctant to do any pop culture references at all other than really obvious ones, maybe afraid that they would go over the audience's head. I suspect it was Mike Nelson who changed that.

In Cry Wilderness we had a Rime of the Ancient Mariner riff. Now that's about as dated as you can get.

But as Monty Python proved long ago, you don't necessarily have to get the reference for the joke to still be funny.

[Cyke]

I only just started Ep. 3, but I very much agree with what's already been said -- too many riffs, and Ep. 2 being a big improvement. Let the jokes breathe a little bit.

One thing that really, impressed me, though: The "Every Nation Has a Monster" bit must have been painstaking to do in a single take, from the writing to the props to the timing to rehearsals. Easily one of the most impressive host segment bits in MST3K, period.

Also, even with that tongue-in-cheek rant about how it'd be easier to do a reboot, I really did get that warm sense of familiarity when Bobo, Observer, and Pearl dropped by for a visit, like when your heart warms up when you see old friends again.

[BeastieRunner]

I only just started Ep. 3, but I very much agree with what's already been said -- too many riffs, and Ep. 2 being a big improvement. Let the jokes breathe a little bit.

One thing that really, impressed me, though: The "Every Nation Has a Monster" bit must have been painstaking to do in a single take, from the writing to the props to the timing to rehearsals. Easily one of the most impressive host segment bits in MST3K, period.

Also, even with that tongue-in-cheek rant about how it'd be easier to do a reboot, I really did get that warm sense of familiarity when Bobo, Observer, and Pearl dropped by for a visit, like when your heart warms up when you see old friends again.

The Land That Time Forgot and Yongary were what I'd call "classic" MST3K.

[AndrewCrossett]

The biggest problem I have with this season is the Netflix format, where you have to a) binge-watch the whole season right away, b) get spoiled, or c) stay off the Internet entirely.

I don't binge-watch, even shows with shorter episodes. I just can't enjoy watching a show that way... too much at once. My plan is to watch the season one episode per week, like in the old days. (Preferably late at night.) But that means I'm bound to get spoiled on things like cameo appearances by old cast members. I don't know if there's any sort of "story arc" happening with the host segments this season. Fortunately, there's not that much to spoil with the theater segments... it's all standalone jokes, and who cares about the plots of the movies?

The Land That Time Forgot... I actually saw that one in a theater when I was a kid. Scared me so bad I had to pretend I needed to use the bathroom, and went and hid out there for a few minutes.

[Cyke]

The biggest problem I have with this season is the Netflix format, where you have to a) binge-watch the whole season right away, b) get spoiled, or c) stay off the Internet entirely.

I don't binge-watch, even shows with shorter episodes. I just can't enjoy watching a show that way... too much at once. My plan is to watch the season one episode per week, like in the old days. (Preferably late at night.) But that means I'm bound to get spoiled on things like cameo appearances by old cast members. I don't know if there's any sort of "story arc" happening with the host segments this season. Fortunately, there's not that much to spoil with the theater segments... it's all standalone jokes, and who cares about the plots of the movies?

The Land That Time Forgot... I actually saw that one in a theater when I was a kid. Scared me so bad I had to pretend I needed to use the bathroom, and went and hid out there for a few minutes.

I honestly wouldn't expect anything like a story arc, other than just all the characters getting used to the situation they're in. When cable executives were mucking about with MST3K in the 90s, I think Murphy replied something like, "we're a puppet show, why do we need a story arc?"

Three episodes in and they'll joke about maybe tropes and cliches and patterns within the show itself, but nothing really making an arc. Advancement and progression yes, but not an arc.

[BeastieRunner]

The Land That Time Forgot... I actually saw that one in a theater when I was a kid. Scared me so bad I had to pretend I needed to use the bathroom, and went and hid out there for a few minutes.

That was one of my favorites as a kid. Which might play a part in my enjoyment of the MST3K episode.