For the first time since the summer of 1999 (holy Crow T. Robot, has it really been that long?), new episodes of the cult hit Mystery Science Theater 3000 are available on Netflix, the non-traditional network that appears to be in the business of breathing new life into old properties with a relatively small but vocal and faithful following.
In the new season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (aka MST3K) Kinga Forrester (Felicia Day) and her loyal henchman, Max (Patton Oswalt), have revived the infamous experiment started by Kinga’s father twenty-nine years earlier: How many cheesy movies does it take to drive a person mad? In this latest reiteration of the show, her test subject is Jonah Heston (Jonah Ray), a space pilot for Gizmonic Institute who gets trapped responding to a distress call from the dark side of the moon. Confined aboard the Satellite of Love, Jonah lives with his robot friends, Gypsy (voiced by Rebecca Hanson), Tom Servo (voiced by Baron Vaughn), and Crow T. Robot (voiced by Hampton Yount). Confronted with Kinga’s choices in torturous films, Jonah and the Bots band together to ward off lunacy by continuously riffing on the movies in rapid-fire succession.
Mystery Science Theater 3000creator Joel Hodgson serves as a writer, director, and executive producer on the new season ofMST3K, which also features Elliott Kalan (The Daily Show with John Stewart) as head writer, as well as a cavalcade of guest stars including Mark Hamill, Jerry Seinfeld, Neil Patrick Harris, Joel McHale, and more.
Can original creator Joel Hodgson recapture lightning in a bottle with a new cast performing to a similar setup? Does it matter, as long as the chosen films set up the sarcastic wisecracking? Stream the new episodes and let us know what you think in the comments below!
