The return of MST3K

A gentleman at one of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 message boards wrote to say that in the last couple of years, he'd lost his wife and had been diagnosed with incurable brain cancer. When he found out that new episodes of MST3K were on the way, he said, "if this isn’t a reason to fight to keep living, I don’t know what is."

That may be an extreme example, but it's clear that last week's news about Rifftrax preparing to make four new episodes of the series, featuring Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett (the trio responsible for the last few seasons of the original series), along with Mary Jo Pehl (the evil Pearl Forrester) and many of the original crew, was met with virtually universal acclaim, and the only reason I add that qualifer is because I'm sure that someone somewhere must have had a discouraging word about it.

The news was completely unexpected, which made the surprise all the more welcome. The original series ran for ten seasons, and a few years ago, the program's creator, Joel Hodgson, raised enough money to fund three additional seasons. These new episodes included an all-new cast, however, given that so many of the original cast and crew were currently working with Rifftrax; and while I've no doubt that they tried their best, the new episodes were, in the opinion of many (including me), sadly lacking in what made the original MST3K so beloved. The sets were more elaborate, thus losing some of the charm of the "garage" feeling engendered by the original. The actors, both on camera and providing the voices, never quite seemed to fit the personalities of the robots; perhaps had there been all-new robots to go along with the all-new humans, it would have been different. There was something about the riffs that seemed off as well; some viewers said they felt there were too many of them, that they didn't seem to be generated spontaneously from the movie itself; others felt that the jokes weren't quite as pop culture savvy, which wouldn't be a surprise given that pop culture itself isn't as funny as it used to be.

Whatever the reason, the new episodes received less-than-unanimous praise, and a project to fund a fourth season fell short of its goal, due in part to complications resulting from the writers' strike. It seemed at that point that MST3K had finally come to an end. But when Hodgson sold out to the parent company of Shout! a couple of weeks ago, the company quickly contacted their collaborators at Rifftrax, and the shocking announcement soon followed, combined with a Kickstarter campaign with an announced goal of $20,000, which was passed in the first hour or so; the most recent figures show that it's raised nearly $1.8 million, 

Considering that I've got MST3K in my list of top-10 favorites, and I write about it frequently in my TV Guide pieces, it won't surprise you to see that I'm spending some time on it this week. During the last five months while I've been working on my new book, MST3K was an almost constant companion in the background; even when I wasn't really paying any attention to it, it was comforting to know that it was on, and I was always able to pause long enough to appreciate a good punchline (and there were many of those). For me, MST3K is the ultimate comfort (TV) food.

Of course, it doesn't pay to go overboard; after all, plenty of people were excited about the first revival as well. And just to be fair, many people like those new episodes; just because I'm not one of them doesn't mean that my opinion is any more important than theirs (except to me, of course). But look; Mike Nelson was the head writer for MST3K for virtually its entire run, as well as being on-camera for the last few years. Kevin Murphy played Tom Servo for every season but the first. Bill Corbett, the voice of Crow T. Robot for the last three seasons (as well as the albino alien Brain Guy) is a very funny guy. Mary Jo Pehl, as the evil Pearl Forrester, was one of the most inept villains anyone's ever seen. Not every episode of the original series was a gem; sometimes the movies were so bad that it was a real challenge finding anything funny or clever to say about them. Sometimes, the jokes misfired, or the skits just weren't that good. That was the exception more than the rule, though. 

If anyone is to be trusted with reviving the legacy of classic MST3K, it's this crew. They've been very successful for 20 years doing Rifftrax, but there's something about teaming their voices up with the characters that fans have known and loved for so many years that makes this singularly irresistible. (Not to mention the announcement of cameo appearances by Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conniff in the final new episode of this series, the evil henchmen tormenting our heroes for most of the show's run.)

The reason this is notable, and why it's important to me, is that it marks a moment of genuine excitement about an upcoming project. Granted, MST3K will never have the ratings of the more prestigious series of the past (although it does have a Peabody Award), and I'm sure there are many more viewers for whatever shows happen to be the latest flavor of the month. But, in an era when it's hard to work up any real enthusiasm for what television has to offer, it's wonderful to see that something which brought so much happiness to people in the past still can create such joy among its fans today, especially when such a part of its appeal is grounded in throwing back to the show's simpler roots. No expensive gadgets, no super-spectacular CGI, just the kindsof things that were created in Joel Hodgson's garage many years ago. When we're constantly reminded of how much innocence we've lost in our modern world, we could do with a little bit of it today. TV

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