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Mystery Science Theater 3000 has a cancellation problem. By which I mean, the show has a habit of getting on the air and getting cancelled. This is obviously not the show's fault. Oh, no, no, no, no, no! The show is a perfect and special little entity that never did anything wrong. And obviously, us fans are innocent little dreamers with sparkles in our eyes, so we couldn't be the problem. That's why the networks and streaming services are the problem, and we'll do everything in our power to destroy them. BURN THE WITCH!
It probably wasn't much of a surprise when Netflix cancelled the series after two seasons. It's just what happens to this show. Getting picked up by Netflix seemed like a good thing at the time. They were high profile and had a reputation of being very creator friendly. While MST3K was on their service, that reputation started to tank. They stopped being a safe space for small projects like this and started viewing things through a more hypercritical lens, wanting projects that drove both views and subscriptions. Mystery Science Theater was always a cult show that filled a niche, so if you're looking to it to sell your platform, your platform needs to be smaller than the show. That's the reason Comedy Central kept it for seven years, because it was arguably their only show at the time, and the Sci-Fi Channel was appealing to niche fanbases at the time, which kept the show safe for three years. During the Netflix run, the show was pretty mishandled in multiple ways, but that's an entire rant I've already gone into while talking about those seasons. Netflix letting it go was practically inevitable, because they were cancelling waves of shows that were much more popular than it. With that, came a pesky clause in their contract that stated the show couldn't be shopped anywhere else for three years, which is a dick move on their part for any series because it assures interest from competition dies down before someone can look at it. Turns out, the creator driven platform that we had trusted in the beginning was just another corporation looking to screw us over.
But, three years later, now free to make its comeback, another Kickstarter was created, and we made our voices heard: Mystery Science Theater 3000 was worth fighting for. And not only that, their latest proposal was a self-distribution system called "The Gizmoplex," a website and app that allowed fans to support the show directly by purchasing the episodes, as well as catering to the fans through special events catering directly to the community. It was a bold move, and one that seemed like it had basis in reality. MSTies are a group of fans who always show up and are always craving content. RiffTrax has been thriving on a similar model for decades. MST3K is more expensive to produce than RiffTrax, but it was worth a shot to see if it could maintain such a model.
It didn't. But it was a hell of a ride.
The Gizmoplex wasn't just a website, it was weaved into the story of the show. The idea was that Kinga Forrester had created a movie theater on the moon, and each fan controlled a little Cambot that explored it. It was a very neat interactive idea, as it tried to make the viewer feel like they were in Mystery Science Theater while watching episodes of Mystery Science Theater. Maybe its ambition exceeded its grasp a tad, because, all things considered, the Gizmoplex was merely a shop and video player that had a non-simple design that was more at home on the internet fifteen years prior, when many websites tried to have some sort of exploration interactivity as a novelty. Because of that, the Gizmoplex did feel like a relic of the past that was trying to be the future.
Of the sole season that was created specifically for the Gizmoplex, Season 13 was a season that tried to bring its A-game. It tried to do a lot of things, a lot of which were based on novelty. For the first time, we have more than one host serving on the series. This is different than Season 5, which had two hosts because of a cast change, but rather multiple people serving as the host of individual episodes. Jonah Ray makes his return as the main host of the season, taking command of seven episodes, but also Emily Marsh makes her debut as the first female host of the series (not including Mary Jo Pehl's short stint in Quest of the Delta Knights). This is not the first time we've met Emily, as she has been present during many live tours and online events, though what her role was supposed to be was unclear. She comes in as a host of five episodes, not exactly as a co-host, but as the main character in most of them. Not only that, Joel Hodgson is back! Not just as a behind-the-scenes creative who sometimes plays Santa Claus, but hosts his own episodes for the first time since 1993! He serves up three episodes this year. And I know what you're thinking, those numbers don't add up to thirteen, which should be the episode count this season. That's because the season finale is a crossover event, bringing together all three hosts for one big celebratory episode!
Is this a necessary format change? Arguably not. If anything, it's self-indulgent. But what I like about the thirteen season's format is that the host rotation feels natural for the series, as fans like myself spent years watching these episodes in a non-chronological order, switching between Joel and Mike at our leisure. Oddly, having two hosts at once feels like something that comes naturally for the series. Not only that, it allows the fans to grow comfortable with a new host as their previous favorites are still going strong, which is arguably necessary if you're going to break the glass ceiling and introduce a female host, which is a vibe the show has never offered before. And the verdict is that Emily is a great host. She's naturally charismatic and works comfortably in the puppet show format (she has a background in puppeteering). She works so well that, even though she has yet to produce a great solo episode, she overwhelms this season with her fresh flavor with only five episodes under her belt. I wish there was more, but she sadly had to leave on a live tour during production, and we're only given a handful of her. If Season 13 has any fixable flaw, it's that more Emily is needed.
All of this in consideration, what about the Bots? Hampton Yaunt and Baron Vaughn return to their roles from the last few seasons, but in addition to them, Kelsey Ann Brady and Conor McGiffin are here to lend their own takes on Crow and Servo.
But dear blog man, you ask, how can this be? Surely, there can only be one Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo! Alas, that is not the case. In fact, it actually hasn't been the case for years. Especially in Servo's case, as he has duplicated himself to an absurd level dating back to Season 4, canonically. But even ignoring that, it's confirmed canon that Jonah's Crow and Servo are not the same Crow and Servo from the original series, who were last seen living in Mike's apartment in the series finale. These ones were made by Kinga for this series, and she went ahead and created a new pair specifically for Emily, as well as a new Gypsy, now renamed GPC due to the new insight that the term "gypsy" is actually an ethnic slur. Jonah's GPC is still played by Rebecca Hanson, while Emily crafts a slimmed down model named GPC2, who is played by Yvonne Ingrid Freese.
There is an elephant in the room in that Kelsey Ann Brady was actually not the Crow that was advertised during the Kickstarter for this season. That was actually Nate Begel, who voiced Crow during several live tours and online events, and was promised to us for this season, participating in much of the advertisement and the campaigning for it. Sometime during production, Begel left the series. This wouldn't be too concerning, normally, except the fact that it was never addressed. The change of Crow voice was never acknowledged publicly, not even to the Kickstarter backers who funded the production. A little heads-up would have been nice. Private information is not necessary (we don't know why Nate left and it's none of our business), but a more professional project would have acknowledged that Nate had dropped out and welcomed Kelsey to the team in a statement. Sadly, I think this has left a stigma on Kelsey's version of Crow. She probably seemed like the natural choice to pick the puppet up because she served as Nate's understudy during the live tours, so she already had a take on the character. The problem is that most of her work is dubbed rather than puppeteering because Nate had actually filmed four episodes before leaving. Some of it can be pretty awkward, and lines and bits that seem to be specifically written to benefit Nate's delivery are left a little cold because Kelsey has to work it into her own while also matching the performance of the puppet that has already been recorded. This isn't Kelsey's fault. This is a rough situation to be inserted into. All things considered, she does fine work. But the sad fact is that she hit us by surprise, and some fans reacted more negatively than they probably should have. I wish I had a better sample of her than is offered during this season, but this is what we have.
Conor McGiffin, however, is an absolute gem as Tom Servo. I've come to really enjoy Baron Vaughn as the character, but Conor is closer to that flavor that Kevin Murphy gave Servo during his nine-year run. He has that cockiness, that swagger, that slightly dim narcissism...love all of it. Ten out of ten. Would Servo again.
New Mads include Baron Vaughn as Dr. Kabahl, the Mysterious Financier from the Future. Kabahl is a fun addition to the dynamic. Giving Kinga someone she is subservient to adds a fresh spin on her character, as she is brash with her underlings but swift to please with her singular overlord. Kabahl feels like a parody of an eccentric billionaire, financing Kinga's weird little project, then throwing new ideas into the mix based on his own whims and ego, coming up with the idea for a multi-host season just because he said so. He has seen the future, and that is why he's always right. Also here, Yvonne Ingrid Freese plays a new Pearl clone named Mega-Synthia. The show doesn't use her much, but those of us who have attended the live tours have seen her ham it up. Not sure why they introduced her into the show if they weren't going to use her, though. In addition to this, Mary Jo Pehl re-joins the show as a regular, and Pearl has a cute little subplot of trying to bond with granddaughter Kinga.
But probably the most notable thing about these episodes is the new aesthetic of the series. Filmed during the outbreak of Covid-19, the series tried to work around new safety protocols and tried filming the series against a greenscreen, so they could utilize minimal crew and add sets later. The series then tried to use this as an excuse to fit in with the aesthetic of the Gizmoplex website and decided all the backdrops to have a kitschy animated style that looked dull and flat, which the showrunners dubbed "Flatimation." I...was not a fan. Ultimately, I'm okay with it as an experiment because Covid was a big problem at the time and they were at least trying to have fun with it, but the problem with this style is that it takes away from the interactivity of the series. Maybe the show doesn't need the big sets they had during the Netflix run, but they need a certain level of space to utilize. There are some fun ways the show plays around with it, with little flying screens and floating puppets and the like, but what we're gaining doesn't exactly compensate for what we've lost. There are things they probably could have done to win me over, such as using the idea for alternating backdrops to explore different locations on the Satellite of Love, but while some new backdrops are used on the moon, they didn't really explore that. And ultimately, I'm just upset that the greenscreen made it so that Tom Servo's head was no longer transparent. Sacrilege.
But the biggest sin of this, and I will die on this hill, are the theater doors. The doors did need to change, as Netflix wasn't allowing use of the doorway sequence used during their episodes and the show needed something to match the new production design, but the compromise was an epic fail. The series just used images of the Netflix doorway sequence and just turned them into flat stills and opened them up. It looks horrendous. If you need to design something from the ground up and in a new style, then come up with something entirely new to suit your strengths. The theater doors should be a sequence of anticipation, knowing that the main event of our favorite show lies on the other side. The new doorway was awkward and uninspired, making it out to be a chore. It's undoubtedly the worst thing about this season.
That's enough of my negativity, because the fact of the matter is that in spite of all of this, this is actually one of the best seasons the show has had in quite a while, even well into the original era. The issues with the theater delivery have finally been hammered out, returning back to the tried-and-true, recording while sitting in the theater with the puppets method, and the riffers are finally able to shine. The writing during this season is bursting with confidence and love, pushing out a product that feels like Mystery Science Theater of old, as if it had never left. The show reaffirmed status as my comfort show, offering some cleverly written wit that fully hit me in my warm and fuzzies. Adding to this was the entire Gizmoplex experience, which was a series of events created by the show to dazzle and connect with the fans, as we get up close and personal with the new cast and crew as they chum around, discuss the new seasons, as well as discussing the old seasons. For my money, the best year of this fandom was 2022. There was nothing like it, and Season 13 was the centerpiece of that.
Film selection is nice and diverse. We have a couple of poorly-dubbed, Spanish El Luchador flicks, but that about does it for movies that have similarities to each other. A good portion of these episodes lean toward films made during my lifetime, which makes me feel old. Two of which were made in the 2010's, including the new champion for most recent film on the show, Demon Squad. We also offer a couple of nostalgia plays, including a re-riff of a KTMA film in The Million Eyes of Sumuru and the return of our favorite kaiju, Gamera! We also have the first black-and-white film of the new era of the show in The Mask, which was also offered in a special anaglyphic 3D version, which was pretty fun. Also here are two films that the people who made this show absolutely hated, with Jonah and his crew having a violent negative reaction to Munchie and Joel going to bat saying that The Bubble was "the new Manos."
As to the best episodes, Gamera vs. Jiger is one of my favorite Gamera movies and the episode was quite excellent. I have a love for Demon Squad, as I find the movie so charming and playful, and I found the episode such a joy. The Christmas Dragon is full of novelty as the multi-host episode, but it's so much fun. The easy bottom choice is The Shape of Things to Come, which is just a blah experience. Robot Wars has a couple of highlights, but the episode didn't quite win me over. And The Bubble wasn't "the new Manos" that I was looking for.
In addition to movies, shorts also made a comeback. Sadly, they weren't a part of the episodes themselves. They were actually special presentations that opened Gizmoplex events while we waited for a new episode. Jonah hosted two of these shorts, Joel hosted another two, Emily hosted a whopping six of them, and an additional three were special shorts riffed by the Mads. The best of all the shorts was Cavalcade, a Mads short riffed by Pearl and special guest Dr. Erhardt, played by special guest star J. Elvis Weinstein. Jonah's best short was the short, but sweet Let's Make a Meal in 20 Minutes. Joel was highlighted by Doing Things for Ourselves in School. The best of Emily's extended run was Better Breakfasts U.S.A.
Eventually, funding for another season floundered and the Gizmoplex wound up shutting down. I'm not entirely sure how connected those two events were, because the loss of the video hosting service was ultimately why we had to lose our little corner of the internet, but it's all now firmly in our hindsight and this whole experiment didn't last. To me, whether this was a failure or not is beside the point. This season, and the entire Gizmoplex experience, meant the world to me and I was happy to be there, living during this period of MST history. In my eyes, that isn't failing. They set out to create a special fan experience and that's what they delivered. It just wasn't meant to be eternal. Will we see this cast again? Who knows. But they were the ones who were holding my hand while I was having the time of my life. Love what you have while it's there. Don't despair when it's gone; just celebrate that it existed in the first place.
Top Three Episodes:
1. Gamera vs. Jiger
2. Demon Squad
3. The Christmas Dragon
Bottom Three Episodes:
1. The Shape of Things to Come
2. Robot Wars
3. The Bubble
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