Tom & Crow's Unsupervised Year-End Review Revue (MST3K Special)

As we close off the launch year of the Gizmoplex, we are given Tom & Crow's Unsupervised Year-End Review Revue, which is a round-up of everything the Gizmoplex had to offer in its first year of content.  Well...only year of content, but I'll discuss that another day.  Tom Servo and Crow host a series of clips from every episode and big event the Gizmoplex had over the course of the year, which includes episode premieres, tribute livestreams, Synthia's Selects, and more!

It's interesting to note that this combination of Crow and Servo is actually Kelsey Ann Brady and Baron Vaughn, which is a combination that has never happened on the show.  I'm not sure why this happened.  Maybe Hampton or Conor were unavailable for the primary shooting day and they made due, or maybe they just wanted to represent both teams and tossed the two together.  But what makes this more awkward than it should be is that Baron's voice is notably hoarse throughout the entire event, so Servo speaks with less gusto than he is known to bring.  I feel bad for him, to be honest, because he is clearly unwell and he's pushing through it for the fans.

Unfortunately, Servo's weak performance kinda brings down the energy and the mood of this particular event.  Most of the new footage seen here is just Crow and Servo, and half of them is not on their A-game.  Even still, most of the material here is pretty generic jokes like you would see in an award show presentation or the like and it doesn't feel like this special was given any exemplary push of creativity to exceed our expectations.  It's pretty much a clip show with some minor new material from Baron and Kelsey, with special appearances by Rebecca Hansen as Synthia and Waverly and Growler, as well as bonus talking head scenes of Conor's Servo and Hampton's Crow.  It's not a lot.  The biggest laughs come with the various subtitles every character has paired when their name appears at the bottom of the screen.  Is it enough?

I remember that like most events, I took a night to myself to watch it, ordered some food, and planned my whole night around it.  After this particular one, the whole ordeal was over in forty minutes and I just kinda sat there, clearly overprepared, not knowing what to do for the rest of the night.  That was clearly my fault, because this was just a bonus and not a full event.  It still was given the same roll-out as the other Gizmoplex events, which made my brain think that maybe this was going to be bigger than what it was.  As a recap, it's fine.  As a livestream event, it was pretty underwhelming.

Frankly, given the Gizmoplex's ultimate fate, the vibe of this special is less disappointing and a little more depressing.  This was supposed to be a celebration of what was created, but given the lack of energy in the whole production and how the Gizmoplex eventually shut down, it almost feels like a funeral today.  I like that they tried this, but I can't help but interpret it as something much different than they intended anymore.  That sucks.