Release Date: March 9th, 2004
Re-Release Date: May 16th, 2017
Buy Rhino Set Here!
Buy Shout Factory Set Here!
Features the following episodes:
Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues...
Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders
Time Chasers
The Touch of Satan
Rhino offers up its second all Sci-Fi era set, desperate to catch up with the few dozen Comedy Central episodes it had already released. The episodes in this set are fairly strong, with Time Chasers being far and away the best episode of the set. Boggy Creek II and Merlin aren’t slouches, bringing plenty of laughs to the table. The set has a minor stumble with Touch of Satan, which had strong moments but isn’t up to the level of the other three episodes.
Average Rating (scale of 1 to 4): 3
While the episodes themselves are the stars of the set, what is on the inside counts as well. Presentation of three of the four episodes are without blemishes. Merlin is the big offender with this set, where its contrast is completely botched. The screen grows pitch black in places, causing the viewer to strain to see what is going on. Eye strain can be eased by messing around with your picture controls, but this is an episode of Mystery Science Theater and that type of screwing around with your TV shouldn’t be necessary.
Supplements are stronger than your average Rhino set. Each episode features an intro by Mike Nelson, while Merlin sports a nifty interview with Mike and Kevin Murphy. The Touch of Satan also includes a trailer. For more details on these feel free to click the links to my individual episode reviews.
Rhino always shined with box art, with Volume 5 sporting an eye-catching cover which appears to be us entering a restricted site (possibly Area 51) that has a tank, a jeep, and an electric fence. Your eye however is mostly drawn to the giant, flashy spaceship that takes up the upper third of the cover.
Opening the set, we see a pic of the spaceship landed and a War of the Worlds type alien strangling Mike, Servo, and Crow with its tentacles, while other areas on the interior show characters from the movie being “beamed down” by other space ships. Disc art is simple, each featuring a dessert with a spaceship hovering above it.
Fun menus are abound. Boggy Creek II features the radar map from the movie, and small blips that are presumably the creature from the movie. Merlin has a stone corridor leading to Merlin’s face hiding behind smoke and vapor. Time Chasers showcases a ton of cheesy, retro computer graphics in the spirit of the film. Touch of Satan creates a somber mood with satanic symbols and fire. Also of note, like all Rhino discs of Mike episodes, whenever the theater seats are featured in the menus it’s always Joel in the seat and not Mike.
By comparison Shout Factory's re-issue of the set fixes the contrast with Merlin's video, but adds a new problem: the video is low resolution and pixelated, making it still a bit of an eyesore. The one plus is that it's easy to see what's going on, however.
The packaging is simpler, being Shout's stock re-issue design in a simple DVD case. It features MST's logo mostly centered against a starry backdrop with the theater seat silhouettes on the bottom, with the volume number on the top. There is a bit of a quality control issue with the art, seeing how someone mistakenly mislabeled the set as "Volume Three" on the back. Interior disc art is also basic, with the star backdrop hosting simple fonts stating which episode is on each disc. Each disc also features the same basic menu of the star backdrop and silhouettes on the bottom, while the closing theme from the show plays. All the extras from Rhino's set have also been ported over.
The episodes in this set are worth owning, and there’s one undisputed classic that’s a must-own. One thing to consider when looking into buying either version of this set is the poor presentation of Merlin on each. The Rhino set has poor contrast, while the Shout set doesn't even meet standard definition standards. Despite this, this set features some fun intros by Mike and a wonderful interview with him and Kevin. It’s true that a lot of ground in this interview is covered in later Shout Factory sets, but there are a few fun tidbits that are not.
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