Mystery Science Theater 3000 is now officially back after Joels failed attempt to get funding secured for a fourteenth season. The guys over at Rifftrax have picked up the slack and have just released the first of four brand new MST3K episodes that all starring Mike Nelson as the host and the first one has just been released and well this is something that i've been dying to see for some time therefor I had to check it out the first chance that I got and so then join me as I review the episode that is technically the first MST3K big screen movie release since Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie with the episode in question being called simply just "Sting Of Death" enjoy.
The plot of this episode is roughly thirty years since he , Tom , Crow and Gypsy all returned to Earth Mike finds himself once again stuck in space with Tom and Crow being forced to watch movies by Pearl Forrester. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's a actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad. Look to be frank plots for this show are usually really thin as there just served as an excuse for them to get to the movie that there watching in that particular episode which in this case is "Sting Of Death" with the plot and situation usually being explained away in the shows opening intro. However tho this episodes plot actually wasn't half bad as while yes it is on the thin side of things it was still fun seeing these characters again only thirty years older with the episode having a really solid plot and while first episodes for the show are nine times out of ten usually plot heavy as they do explain why the characters are in the situation that there in with the same thing also being true for when there's a new host here they didn't really need to do that as the host wasn't a new character it was someone that people have been wanting to see more off for literally decades now and therefor having a more thinner plot was something that does make sense altho it would have helped if they did have a more stronger plot just to get these new episodes off to a really stronger start with the plot of this episode also being really rather entertaining and as well as being really rather engaging as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Starring in this episode is this episodes co-writer Michael J. Nelson as Mike Nelson and this episodes co-writer , producer and director Kevin Murphy as Tom Servo and Professor Bobo. Also starring in this episode is this episodes co-writer Bill Corbett as Crow T. Robot as Brain Guy , Mary Jo Pehl as Pearl Forrester , Patrick Brantseg as A Cheese Factory Employee , Beez McKeever as A Cheese Factory Employee and Jef Maynard as A Cheese Factory Employee.
Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's a actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad. To be frank alot of the actors in this very episode do know full well that there acting is going to be treated that seriously as the show itself is not known for having great acting in it rather it's just known for poking fun at some really bad movies and that's and with this in mind this episodes acting does come off as being really good with all of the leads in the episode having some wonderful chemistry together is something that does make alot of sense as they all do Rifftrax together. With the best actor in this episode being Michael J. Nelson as Mike Nelson as he is just so lovable in this role with him not really being afraid to make fun of himself which is something that alot of actors wouldn't do and with him being a writer on these new episodes it would have been very easy for him to remove lines that make of fun him and yet he kept them in and led into them with alot of charm and grace with Michael J. Nelson playing the dumb but lovable hero really well as you do want to route for him but at the same time much like Tom and Crow he's an utter idiot but in all of the best ways possible with him having his own charm and charisma that really do shine through in this episode. With the acting that's in this very episode really being helped by the fact that this episodes script is just so good that all this episodes actors have to do is just say the lines as they are written and a good performance will come out of them naturally which is something that really does help to raise the overall quality of the acting that's in this very episode.
One of the more famous aspects of the show is the hallway between the bridge of the Satellite Of Love and it's titular theater. With the hallway getting changed every view years and sadly it's change for these episodes is a bit of a down point for me personally as while there is nothing with the idea of them spoofing movies in them but its the fact that the sequence does go on for a long time that does make it a chore to sit through and while the makes of this episode do try and add something to it be it The Shining girls first welcoming us and then wishing we'd come to them or even the fact that an animated dinosaur fight is added in one of the scenes it doesn't make the scene alot more fun to watch rather it makes it drag on a bit longer. Granted this is something that was always going to make alot of people angry as there was no way in heck that they were going to match what they did in both the original show and to a lesser extent the Netflix era of the show as they did make use of practical effects whereas the Gizmoplex era had it be entirely animated with this one using a mixture of the two and while it does work in some places like the first one where we literally enter into a movie theater or even with the fighting dinosaurs it's when we get to the girls from The Shining where it does feel a little bit off putting almost as if the makers of the episode either didn't have enough money or enough time to fully finish it with it coming of as being a less funny South Park skit but the idea of having Pearl Forrester talk as the girls during that segment was a really good and funny idea but the whole hallway scene did need to be shortened just to make it more bearable to watch.
As you can see in the name of this post the movie that the MST3K crew are riffing in this episode is the movie Sting Of Death. With the movie to be honest being one that does look really bad and perfect for this show but in saying this tho the makers of this show even when they were making the original show always said that the bad movies have to be the good kind of bad in that they have to have not perfect but good enough picture and sound quality and have to allow themselves to be mocked and while this film does have plenty of things that could be mocked in it and while the picture quality is really good it's the sound quality that needed to be fixed as the film does have music cues start halfway threw a scene and spend the rest of the rest of the scene being completely silent thee is a good chance that they was how the film was meant to be viewed tho. Which if that was the case then fair enough and it does seem like they used the recently released Blu-Ray restoration of the film as the picture quality for the film the guys are riffing on does look really good but again it's the sound that's the issue here as it does feel like that there should have been more music in the film then what we actually here and heck given the fact that the film is silent for alot of the time it's surprising that they never picked up on and made fun of that as it is something that does stand out a mile, with the film being the type of schlock that you would expect to find being covered in this show and to be fair it does do it's job in not only making fun of a bad movie but in also making you want to see that same bad movie just to see if it's as bad as this episodes made it out to be and heck like alot of films that are featured on this show this film is mostly shown unedited whereas when they did something like This Island Earth they did have to cut alot of scenes out of the movie to tell there plot in there own movie.
While it's great seeing Mike , Tom and Crow back again it is weird not seeing Gypsy with them as she was a big part of the original show and while the original show did give her a good send off by saying that she now owns and runs her own company. It still would have been nice to see her or even get a mention of her and what she's up to even if its in passing and heck we do spend a good few minuets catching up on what Pearl has been doing alot of which just retconns the last three seasons of the show as there's no mention of Kinga or her time spent helping her with Gizmoplex which is fair enough as alot of people really didn't like that season of the show therefor it would have been nice to find out just what it is that Gypsy has been up to in the years since season 10 even if it's just in a quick nothing line and yet she gets nothing. They even replaced her in the intro by having Tom show up twice and having Crow comment on it however there is still a good chance that she would be showing up in future episodes which is something that would be nice to see but given the fact that the intro spoil the fact that we will be seeing both TV's Fran and Dr. Forrester it does seem weird that she wouldn't be in the intro or even in the show as she had been a main character in quite literally every single season of the show even when she got renamed in season thirteen to GPC she was still in a good portion of the episodes and yet here we get nothing from her and while granted when it comes to the bots people mostly remember both Tom and Crow and that's really it it still would have been nice to have her in these episodes as these are meant to be anniversary episodes for Rifftrax and yet she's nowhere to be seen or heard in this episode, while the episode isn't really effected by her not being in the episode as everything would still play out the same not mentioning her and pretending that she was never a character in the first place feels a bit of a weird choice on the part of the makers of this episode.
Whilst this might sound like a cliche thing to say as it is something that could really be applied to any era of the show that has a into of money behind it. The show does from a visual stand point look really good with that Kickstarter fund going to some good places like giving us a good looking bridge for the SOL and even giving us improved shots in the earth segments with this making this episode feel alot more like a movie with it feeling like that the makers of this episode new full well that this is the episode that they'd have in a limited theatrical run and therefor they chose to make it look as good as they could have done in the the time that they had to make the episode as we do get camera shots that they would never do in a regular episode of the show with there being alot of tracking shots both in the opening of the episode where we push in on Mike's job at the Cheese factory and even when we first meet Pearl again. That is a small thing but its something that does make this episode visually look more cinematic so much so that you could have made this as an actual movie and released as a movie and no one would be able to tell that much of a difference and while the episode does loose the homemade feel as everything does look a little bit to good for this show this is something that does make sense as the Mike era was all about pushing the show forward and not holding it back and while there are somethings in this episode that were done for real and have that home made look to them alot of the effects in the show weren't done for real and they look good, the bridge for the SOL even looks really good with us finally having a practical bridge again unlike what we have last series which was just a practical control panel and an animated background here everything is practical with even Trace Beaulieu coming back to design it and it is something that will appease alot of long time fans of this truly iconic show.
Now then this episode has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly one hour and thirty minuets and five seconds. Which is pretty much the bogstandard running time for this show to have and to be fair this episode really does need to have that long a running time as even the shows intro sets up the main premise for the season we still do need to catch up with alot of the characters from the original show and find out what Pearls main scheme is this season as none of that is covered in the intro to the season and to not have any of that in the episode would not only be insulting to the fans that grew up watching the original show as they would know and love these characters and would want to know what it is they've been up to but it would also do a huge disservice to the episode itself with the episode having more the enough plot there to really cover tat amount of running time in the first place. Yet with this being said tho the episode really doesn't take the time to fully develop it's plot and whilst this is something that would be seen as being a bad thing here tho it is something that does make sense in someway as the shows intro does cover alot of the important plot stuff by saying that Pearl has kidnapped Mike from his steady little job with the episode itself telling us why she's doing it and but that's the only bit of plot that we get as we don't get to find out what Mike and the bots have been up to or why Tom and Crow are back on the SL when they ended the original show with Mike on earth these are things that could have added some small amount of plot to development to the episode with the makers of this episode being more focused on giving the Satellite Of Love a new name with it now being called Syd's Olive Loaf which they do explain as a joke then they are in giving the plot some plot development. The same thing is true for the episodes character development as none of them really get any kind of development at all but this is the show that doesn't really do character development as its always been a gag driven show but it still would have been nice if we really did get some kind of character development even if it was done as a joke with the makers of this episode really being more focused on reconning seasons eleven through thirteen then they are in giving the characters any kind of character development but I really will admit that this episode really does have some really good pacing to it tho.
So now then as this is a comedy that really does mean that I have to actually talk abut the actual comedy that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual comedy that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty really good. To be frank the episodes comedy is the one thing that this episode does really well as it captures the spirit of the original show whilst also not being afraid to be add in things that the guys would have learnt from doing Rifftrax with the characters making some really good jokes about how bad the so called good dancing is in the movie or the fact that alot of the characters in the movie are smoking for no reason other then it's the sixties. With the best joke in the whole entire episode being the song that they sing when they first come back from the theater as Tom and Crow sing the song "Do The Tardigrade" which honestly is just a really funny song and is a play on the fact that in the film the characters are seen dancing to a song about a Jellyfish and while Mike at first doesn't want to take part in the song with hi trying to get into touch with his manager at the Cheese factory even he joins in at the end at the end wearing a giant Tardigrade costume and even both Brain Guy and Professor Bobo attempt to join in with Pearl very quickly shutting down there efforts and while the song isn't as good as "Every Country Has a Monster" from the season eleven premiere episode it still a really funny song that does show that these guy do still know how to make you laugh and aren't afraid of looking silly and playing the fool whilst doing it with the rest of the episodes jokes being just as good as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Overall may oh may is it so good to have this show back even if it just for four episodes it's better then nothing with this episode really proving that the old crew can still make us laugh and do still know how to make this show be really good and be just as funny as it was back in the eighties and nineties in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very episode in this very review and a such that really does mean that this very episode really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 7.5 out of 10 from me.
Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in ti very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from the official Mystery Science Theater 3000 fandom wiki page , IMP Awards . Com and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get the images from this very episode that I used in this very post being the really great Google Images really simply just due to the fact that really alot of if not really all of the images that are all really from this very episode with alot of them really being really better quality then what you'd really think of and all of the images are really of course up and really on Google Images really are also really all fairly high in quality and as well as them all being really fairly freaking high in definition.