K11-Humanoid Woman

Film Year:  1981
Genre:  Science Fiction
Director:  Richard Viktorov
Starring:  Yelena Metyolkina, Uldis Lieldidz, Vadim Ledogorov, and a lot of other names my spellcheck won't let me write
MST Season:  KTMA

The Movie

Aha!  An unsung Sandy Frank import!  This one from Russia (the episode misidentifies it as Czechoslovakia).  Who’d’ve thunk it?

Astronauts find an alien woman adrift in space and bring her down to Earth where they treat her for amnesia by letting her roll on grass, wear wigs, and play tennis with a robot knock-off of Rosie from the Jetsons.

“What’s bothering you?”
“…the telephone is ringing…”

Somehow this exchange leads her to try and get back to her dying homeworld, so she hitchhikes on a space mission in an attempt to return.

Weird movie that bounces back and forth between something serious and something bizarre (or does taking its bizarreness seriously count?).  By the time we get to the ending featuring some bizarre possessed pile of whipped cream and roasted marshmallows that eats people, the movie flies so far off its rocker that you can’t help but admire the effort it took to make something this unconventional.

It’s not…awful, but it’s too off in its own world to be really all that enjoyable.  Sometimes that tongue-in-cheek attitude can be your saving grace if you just embrace it.

Note:  Apparently the uncut version of this movie, titled "To the Stars by Hard Ways," is two-and-a-half hours long.  If you were wondering why the movie makes little sense, cutting an hour out of it probably had something to do with it.

The Episode

This episode might have been stronger later on where they would have played up the oddness far more than they do here.  It’s a tad disappointing that they don’t play with it as much as Cosmic Princess or Gamera vs. Guiron, but it’s hard to ask for more from KTMA than it gives.  I’m just happy they put out so much quality comedy with so little production value.

Three of the host segments were remade for the first national season, which tells me that the crew was proud of them.  I think they’re solid, but not really amazing.  Though Servo hitting on a blender is classic comedy.  And for whatever reason, I think the idea of the Mads having a cardboard cutout of Elvira all tied up is hilarious.

I’m on the fence.  Some parts of the episode leave me smiling and others cold.  I’m going to throw this one in the lesser category, but it’s better than others that I’d lump there as well.

Average