Genre: Disaster
Director: David Lowell Rich
Starring: Barbara Anderson, Bert Convy, Peter Graves, Lorne Greene, Season Hubley, Tina Louise, George Maharis, Doug McClure, Burgess Meredith, Martin Milner, Brock Peters, Robert Reed, Susan Strasberg, Misty Roe, Billy Crystal, John de Lancie, Regis Philbin
MST Season: KTMA
The Movie
It's a TV movie that spent all of its budget on its actors, SST- Death Flight is a dream for anybody who watched a lot of TV during the 60's...or Nick at Night during the 90's. This star studded cast mostly plays the passengers of a new model of supersonic plane that is sabotaged during its flight, while also containing a disease on board that has been accidentally set free. Having been refused at its destination, they are forced to detour with limited fuel.
It's very clear that SST- Death Flight is mostly sold on its sizable cast, while also riding high on the success of the Airport film series by creating an airplane based thriller to be aired directly for television. Since it's cast with seasoned professionals, we're at least given a bunch of people who will play the material to the best of their abilities. But the majority of what takes place is people having mostly the same concerned conversation with each other over and over. It's not a compelling script, but thankfully we're given a group of people who will try and elevate it.
Probably the most amusing thing about this movie in retrospect is that it stars Peter Graves a few years before he starred in the Airport parody classic Airplane, which has arguably lasted much longer in pop culture than Airport has, and certainly much longer than Death Flight, whose only claim to fame these days is the Mystery Science Theater episode. I'm also watching said episode of MST during the COVID-19 pandemic, so its story about an uncontained virus does hit a little close to home at the moment. If only Robert Reed and Burgess Meredith were here to save us.
The Episode
"Everybody form two lines! Love Boat on the left, Fantasy Island on the right!"
Joel and the Bots are mostly starstruck during the opening of SST- Death Flight. They can't believe all of the stars that they're seeing, and they're mostly content with just listing them off instead of telling actual jokes. They become a bit over-eager about it after a while, as they're so in the rhythm of spotting celebrities that they misidentify Brock Peters as Barney from Mission: Impossible. Spoiler Alert, Brock Peters did not play Barney on Mission: Impossible (that would be Greg Morris). But I think they're just surprised to see this many familiar faces after so many Gamera movies, Gerry Anderson puppets, killer ants, and whatever the hell Humanoid Woman was. They even get to see a few faces they'll see down the line, like Burgess Meredith (The Last Chase), Peter Graves (It Conquered the World, Beginning of the End, Parts: The Clonus Horror),Robert Reed (Bloodlust!), and Doug McClure (The Land That Time Forgot, At the Earth's Core).
Once they calm their jets, they take ample opportunity to do make riffs based on previous roles of the many people we're seeing. If you're a TV buff, this riff is ripe with references to TV history and it's one that is easily appreciated. They're in that crude KTMA style, but there's enough fun to be had and its an enjoyable experience. Even seeing that the film itself is a TV production adds a cozy "Sit in and watch TV with a bucket of popcorn" vibe to this episode.
Host segments are pretty light. Dr. Forrester went to Vegas and has stories, which is a fun way to open the episode. And Gypsy has a lady's voice for once in pre-2017 MST history. Make-up lady Faye Burkholder plays the sexy Gypsy voice here. This would make her the first woman to play Gypsy, beating Rebecca Hanson to the punch by nearly 30 years, but the joke of the segment is that she's Tom Servo throwing his voice. First woman to play Tom Servo? Joel, Crow, and Gypsy also limbo while Servo sings "Day-O," which may be copyright infringing, I'm not sure. Also Joel experiments on the Bots to make them feel pain, and Servo wants more.
I think this is one of the more enjoyable episodes of KTMA. The movie is relatively watchable and the pop culture riffing is a really fun underlining to it. For those who have never seen a KTMA episode it's probably one that I'd recommend a newbie give a try. It might not win many converts to the early days of the series, but it is a very strong example of it.
Good
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