Five-and-a-half years after the original Kickstarter campaign to Bring Back MST3K and one-and-a-half years after Joel announced Netflix wasn't picking up the series for a thirteenth season, Joel returned to Kickstarter in April of 2021 with a new idea of launching a new app called the Gizmoplex, to debut new episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 on and hopefully self-sustain the series for the foreseeable future. One of the more amusing things that Joel brought to this Kickstarter that had fans delighted was a series of live streams featuring himself, the revival cast, the tour cast, and a few special guests like J. Elvis Weinstein, Mary Jo Pehl, and Bill Corbett.
The majority of these live streams seemed to play with the seed of concept you could see brewing in the previous year's Riff-A-Long special, where the cast would watch a classic episode of the series together. Instead of riffing over it like the Riff-A-Long did, these streams were meant to be more like watching MST together with your friends and hanging out. They would commentate on the episode or the movie amongst each other as well, and the discourse is delightful.
There were six episodes watched during these watch party streams: Hobgoblins, Untamed Youth, Quest of the Delta Knights, Gamera vs. Guiron, Werewolf, and Zombie Nightmare. I have absolutely no problem with the episode selection. I think all of these episodes are rock solid and fun. Even Untamed Youth, while a first season episode, is one of the highlights of it's season. And what's great about watching these episodes with the new casts intermingling and we get to see them talk about the series as both fans and people who worked on it. It's cool to hear everyone throw out their favorite episodes and compare them to their own experiences on the show, such as Baron giving a shoutout to Yongary, claiming he and Jonah were certain that episode was going to be the hit of the season, only to be taken by surprise when Cry Wilderness got all the love (I like Yongary, but I'm going to give the edge to Cry Wilderness).
Probably the undoubted highlight is watching these episodes with Joel. He even admits up top that he had never seen Hobgoblins or Quest of the Delta Knights before, which means we get to see him watch these episodes for the first time. I'll tell you what, watching him get that huge belly laugh at a joke you're familiar with a million times over makes it feel like we're watching these episodes for the first time all over again. One moment I treasure is when they watch the opening credits to Hobgoblins and Joel reads a name in the credits and says "I know him!" That's the moment that made me fall in love with this format.
In a bit of a missed opportunity, while it's fun to see Joel respond to episodes he's not familiar with, I kind of wish there were more Joel episodes in this line-up. There are only two, and it feels like there could be some behind the scenes trivia that could be deep dived into. He and J. Elvis talk a lot over Untamed Youth, about how they had difficulty writing the episode and had to buy alcohol to get through it. Joel was set to also view Gamera vs. Guiron but had to back out at the last minute (the official reason is that his co-workers asked him to take the day off), so that stream turns less informative and more rowdy, as Jonah, Hampton, Nate, and Conor turn the episode into a party. But Bill Corbett drops in for the Werewolf stream to talk about the production of that episode, while Mary Jo barely remembers anything about Delta Knights.
On the flip side, Zombie Nightmare has a guest who actually worked on the film itself. Frank Deitz pops in after the episode to discuss what sounds like a chaotic shoot, including Adam West stories, unfilmed nudity, and forgetting to pick up a guest actor at the airport. Deitz is full of life and is eager to share these interesting tidbits, and it's fun to hear them!
There are also Q&A sessions. A lot of basic stuff like "What's your favorite episode?" and so on. I actually had a question that was answered on stream, though they didn't mention my Twitter account by name. My question basically stemmed from how little we knew about Emily, Conor, Nate, and Yvonne, because they just kinda popped up in the franchise one day without much introduction and never left, so they've always felt like an enigma to me. So I asked on Twitter how they met Joel and got into the fold, which apparently is a question that really excited Emily, because she "liked" my tweet within seconds and she brought it up right at the beginning of the Hobgoblins stream, and they all did a great roundtable about auditioning for their roles. The fact that I helped spawn a Q&A highlight gives me the warm and fuzzies.
But the highlight stream wasn't even a watch party, but rather a Jackbox Game Night stream. Jonah, Baron, Hampton, and Rebecca go head-to-head with Emily, Conor, Nate, and Yvonne to see which cast was the superior by playing several rounds of the Jackbox party games. Let me tell you right now, any criticism that the new cast isn't "funny enough" went down in flames with this stream, because I was laughing so hard I couldn't breath. Best in Show, in my opinion, goes to each team's Crow, which both walk up to the plate and hit a home run. Nate gives us an outstanding Ed Wynn impersonation, which effectively annoys everyone in the room, but left me begging for more. Meanwhile Hampton just steals the spotlight at every opportunity, culminating in a brilliant round of Talking Points, where he does an angry German talking about his life-changing Golden Girls fan fiction. It is truly epic and hilarious.
However my one criticism is that when he says "Thank you" at the end, he doesn't add "For being a friend."
You see like the theme song.......okay, I'll shut up now.
Everything leads up to a second Final Countdown telethon, which culminated the Kickstarter by entertaining the audience to the best of its ability as the final hours counted down. Unfortunately due to Covid protocols, the telethon isn't as extravagant as the 2015 telethon and had to be held over Zoom, but it still has a few surprises up it's sleeve. There are pre-recorded bits by entertainment guests, including Dana Gould and Mario and his magic robots. Celebrity guests include Alex Winter and Michael Sheen, who both give the Kickstarter their well wishes. Jonah and Emily's crew even go in for Jackbox Round 2, which isn't as extravagant as the first stream and just consists of a few rounds of Quiplash.
Like the previous telethon, the main goal of the Kickstarter was already passed before the telethon began, and the telethon was just reaching for stretch goals. In this case, Joel challenged us to surpass the $6.36 million that the previous Kickstarter raised, in return for a bonus holiday special episode. Mission accomplished within the final hour, but the telethon continued as they continued to watch the counter go up until it surpassed $6.5 million and the Kickstarter officially ended, officially confirming MST3K would return for a thirteen-episode thirteenth season, and the Gizmoplex app will become a reality this fall. I find myself optimistic for the future of the series. But the real test of the fruits of these labors will be seeing whether or not the Gizmoplex can sustain enough funds for a fourteenth season. Here's hoping we won't need another Kickstarter to get there, because I'm running out of money!
That being said, once the Gizmoplex gets up and running, it might be fun if the watchalongs become a regular thing. There are certainly plenty of episodes, and I'm sure a lot of people will tune into them! It would help sell the Gizmoplex and these streams help endear the audience to the new cast. But even if these are all we get, these were some of the most fabulous moments of the second Kickstarter.
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