Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return (now on Netflix)

Watching the first 30 minutes or so of an episode--combined with the fact that literally none of the original cast are to be found here--moved this revival for me from a stack of cautious optimism into a pile of who even cares.

Wondering why this was brought me to wikipedia, where I found this:

[Original series creator Joel] Hodgson believed that the revival would need a wholly new cast, considering that the cast had completely turned over in the original series.

You were wrong, sir. Even just bringing back the voices of Tom Servo and Crow would have done a lot of good here.

give it a chance, dude. i felt right at home once the movie got going. and i totally dig the fresh blood, yet they still fit well regardless. i'm glad they took a risk.

Seeing as how I only have a real love for the Mike era, and Rifftrax already exists, I never really thought that I wanted or needed this. I'll probably check it out, and I'll keep an open mind, but I've never even seen a Cinematic Titanic so we'll see.

This is exactly like the old show. It's just as lame as the old show in all the same ways. That isn't to say I don't enjoy it, I'm just saying the old show wasn't any better than this.

So far show is good, seems like it should be back on syfy though, even has the same space for commercials.

Joel said he left the spots for commercial breaks in so that viewers would have a nice spot to pause and get a sandwich or w/e

3 Episodes in and really enjoying it. Cry of the Wilderness was pretty golden. Reptilicus Kaiju rap was great as well. A Reptile *dysfunction riff had my girlfriend in tears. The new bot voices hurt my nostalgia but I'm getting over it. New mads are hit or miss but they've got charisma so I'll give them a chance to develop too.

It's not very good. Crow and Tom shouldn't be there let alone have different voices (if you recall- I know you don't- they left the SOL with Mike when the show ended), Felicia Day is just Felicia Fay and doesnt work in this so as much as I like her in stuff in this she's severely miscast, Jonah Ray is good casting for the new guy, there's too many jokes- they dont seem to trust their own jokes to work so they make as many jokes as possible, due to last thought the jokes come off superficial and written rather than conversational and attempts at getting through the torture of their experiment as unscathed as possible, i have no issues with Patton Oswalt-peoples complaints seem merely political and not based on his work, the innerstitials they do (as a throw back to the commercial breaks) are super bizarre, they got the feel right- it still looks like MST3K, the skits are fun- even at the shows best the skits were always hit or miss so to me there's no change there, the guy who does Crow specifically is trying to hard-sometimes he's trying to do Trace/Bill and other times he's not, the guy who does Crow and the guy who does Tom sound just similar enough that sometimes it is unclear which is talking, the playing with the screen is common place (they always did) but they've amped it up-maybe a bit too much.

It's s 3/5 for me. Sometimes it's funny, but it feels so unnatural and other bad things make it even more subpar than MST3K season 0 (which is pretty bad). I like parts of it and I'm fine with it existing (I can watch the old stuff and Rifftrax anytime), but it's low quality.

And I know of YouTubers that are brilliant riffers so mostly I think Joel was just not thinking enough outside the box both in casting and the writing when making this.

Sorry for anything wrong in this, written on my phone at work.

Having recently gone back and watched some of the older episodes, "big laughs" were rarely their stock and trade. They'd get the occasional one, but they were definitely quantity over quality rapid-fire, and I think the new one has captured that.

As I posted above: I'm really digging what I've seen so far (first 4 episodes), they're definitely going more toward the Comedy Central seasons than the Sci-Fi Channel ones, and while I prefer the latter, I think the writing's strong enough to carry it. There's some weirdness, especially with the same robots having VERY different voices, but I have to say the highlights for me are Jonah, Patton and Felicia. All 3 of them are absolutely fantastic and do a great job of evoking the nostalgia of the old without leaning TOO heavily on it.

Though I have to say: I'm liking the bots as I watch more of the series, so it really might just be a matter of the voice changes (which I know happened with Crow once already).

They found a Hercules movie with a Hercules worse than Steve Reeves.

WORSE THAN STEVE REEVES.

Really every movie they've chosen have been pretty interesting so far. The worst MST3K episodes are ones where the movie is uninteresting ass and the jokes don't make up for it. Every movie here has had something to latch onto, wether it's the insane plot of Cry Wilderness, the hammy-ass acting in Starcrash or the nice scenery of The Land that Time Forgot (which, truth be told, doesn't seem like that bad a movie on its own).

[I]Yongary[/I] is probably my favorite episode so far. They definitely have found their footing as the season goes on and this one feels akin to one of the Gamera episodes.

Reptilicus was something else.....something else........

......something else.....

I didn't watch MST3K when I was little so I have no nostalgia for the show or anything. I just tried to watch the first episode of the original show on netflix and I....don't get it.

There's zero editing for the duration of the movie so it's often just silence in between small forced jokes. I'll compare this to the web show Best of the Worst. That show has a lot of editing and a discussion at the end. It's just a bunch of friends laughing and talking about the movie. I watched like 20 minutes of MST3K and gave up. I never even smiled or anything.

This seems like my kind of show though...can someone recommend me one of the best classic episodes?

@frostyryan: There's a pretty solid collection of classic episodes on Netflix right now, actually. Manos: The Hands of Fate is probably one of the most famous and one of my favorites.

I'm only a few episodes into the new season, but overall I'm really liking it. The pacing of the jokes is a little too intense for my tastes, but otherwise there's far more to like than dislike. "A fire in the aquarium? That'll sort itself out" from Reptilicus was probably my favorite joke so far, made all the better if you're familiar with The IT Crowd.

I didn't really laugh at all during the first episode, Reptilicus. Couldn't even finish it, even. But Cry Wilderness, on the other hand, was an absolute riot. Really great stuff in that one, so I'll definitely be continuing on with this reboot.

I finished the season. Overall I'd give it a solid B or B+ and with some more tweaking a second season should be great. The only real negatives were a lot of the host segments fell flat (though they've always been secondary to the riffing) and I was kind of meh on Kinga Forrester the whole season.

They've built a really solid foundation for a new era of the show.

Still really liking the season and especially Cry Wilderness and StarCrash. I immediately recognized a lot of the locations in Cry Wilderness so it was extra hilarious when they would jump from the tufa lake (Mono lake) to the basalt columns (Devils postpile national monument) and to the old mining town and mine (Bodie) all of which are at least a 45 minute drive from each other. Also the theme for StarCrash is really similar to the theme for Rogue One.

I'm not someone who grew up with the original MST3K but I'm two and a bit episodes into the new series and I really like it. Sometimes they throw so many jokes at the wall that it's hard to process them all at once and sometimes their gags are a little too obvious. So far the film chosen for the first episode and the film chosen for the third episode feel like they have too much in common and it can be hard to tell the character voices apart. However, I mostly like that they do a great job of not leaving dead air, there have been gags in there that have been really funny, and I think the set and costume design looks great. Where they could have sucked all the character out of the format by plastering it with a bunch of modern CGI effects, they use models and props that are a ton of fun to look at. I'm also really enjoying the chatter between both Jonah's crew and The Mads.

Really not digging it so far. It really feels like they haven't workshopped the jokes to get the best material and have just left everything in. The book end skits around the movie-riffing is lame, but that's always been lame, and they probably should have given some thought on how to tinker with the show to improve it. Currently it is just like the old show but without people I like as much being as funny.