Did Netflix screw up Joel's plans for season 12? (spoilers)

[Troy's Dad]

I finally got around to finishing Season 12, mainly because I wanted to stretch out the 6 episodes.

Having attended the 2018 tour, I was really confused by the whole premise. Why did Jonah have his own ship? Where were the Mads? Who was this Donna St. Phibes?

Then I saw the ending to Ator and it all made sense, but something felt really off. Having The Gauntlet (does the hand gesture) build up to Jonah escaping for a live show on Earth felt very anticlimactic given I already saw the live show more than a month ago. It would have made much more sense for season 12 to premiere in mid to late September and then serve as a lead-in to the live tour. Viewers would feel much more invested in Jonah's escape to Earth and being a part of the ending to the Ator episode.

I really have to wonder if this was Joel's plan all along and Netflix botched it by wanting to hold off on season 12 until Thanksgiving, thus making the tour take place before anybody saw season 12.

One thing I'd note: Donna St. Phibes had a much better introduction during the tour, with a well produced "documentary" setting up who she is, how her ship works, and what she does. I'm honestly surprised they didn't use this in the show itself.

[Torgo]

It seems more likely a Thanksgiving release would have been proposed on Shout Facory's end or maybe by Joel himself. I highly doubt Netflix gave much of a damn about MST's 30th anniversary and were content to release it whenever.

[majorjoe23]

In one of the Revival League podcasts, they were interviewing people on the set on season 12 and they talked about starting to write the live shows soon, so they knew from the writing process that the live show would be after the show itself.