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Post by vgaddict on Jun 17, 2020 6:52:36 GMT -5
Now that the Netflix revival has been canceled, what is your opinion on the Jonah era of MST3K? What were your favorite episodes? What did you like about the show? Was it a worthy followup to the show we all love?
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Post by crowschmo on Jun 17, 2020 13:42:01 GMT -5
I think it had a lot of potential but they really didn't get a chance to get their sea legs in the amount of time they were given. I liked Jonah and I liked Baron and Hampton as the 'bots and the voices (although they could have made them a little more different from each other). Wasn't crazy about Gypsy (the Big G - what are they calling her? GPC?)  She didn't have a personality and no interesting voice. She was just talking. They still could have upgraded her smarts while still making her quirky or something. Liked Rebecca fine as Synthia, I just think she should have made Gypsy's voice have more charater. Kinga and Max were OKAY. They were a bit much, but I think a toned down, more "silky evil" from Kinga would've helped instead of just regurgitating the term "nightmare fuel" and constantly being an in-your-face "we're on Netflix and we need ratings" corporate shill. She could've been a combo of Dr. F's slimy-evil-but-goofy and Pearl's um, Pearliness. Don't think she quite hit that. She wasn't 3 dimensional enough. Max was just kind of there. The pace was a little too hectic and impatient at times. They needed moments to take a breath and let the crappiness of the movie shine through while still commenting on said crappiness, but not in a way that was so rapid-fire and horn-tootin'-it's-all-for-the-yuks, uh, ness. It was too "new" and "slick" to have the feel of that homey, old style. I don't know if that would work on a new show in this day and age. Like, people still watch The Andy Griffith Show for that folksy feel, but would that work in a modern setting? (I mean like, would a reboot or similar show like that work, or are those days gone for good?). I don't know. Again, lots of shows and movies these days are too in-your-face and try to be "hip" (do the kids still use that term these days? - my hip, ow), or they try to be edgy, and it just comes off as obnoxious. Some shows still work - Like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, but I may just be used to shows I grew up with, but I really don't like a lot of shows these days that try to do too much at once and don't take a break to just be. People claim they want family friendly shows, though, and people watch things like "This is Us", so I don't think a slower show would've hurt. It would still be FUNNY. (And quirky, quirky's good, right?). As for MST3K, we didn't need the constant "look at me I can make the 'bots move more in front of the screen" type dealio. Just good old Jonah and the 'bots, chillin', would've been good. And the lighting wasn't great - it felt too stark and sterile (and the sets, also). There was no camera movement, so it didn't feel organic. I liked the Wizard movies and Cry, Wilderness and that ski one (? brain fart). Oh, yeah - Avalanche. Season 11 was okay for the most part. Season 12 was painful and pandering, I still haven't gotten entirely through it so there might be moments of gems in there that I just didn't have the patience to get to. Great to bring back Josh, but, again, it felt forced. (And just singing an old song doesn't give you that "going home again" kind of feels). With a little less focus on "ratings" and "hey, we're on Netflix" and "hey, we're in the 21st century", and a little more focus on the guys hanging out watching bad movies and making quips, and a little more of that home-made feel, I think it could've gone much better. I don't know if today's audiences have enough patience to see what that would be all about. (Except us oldsters, like oldsters of old watching Matlock and Murder She Wrote - but hey, there are enough of us out there, right? - we're a legit demographic, right?). So, it was a neat little experiment and I hope they do more live shows and try to keep it going in some form. |
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Post by mylungswereaching on Jun 17, 2020 15:36:02 GMT -5
Mst3k is always going to be a niche show. There are a lot of people out there who just want to be spoon fed everything. They aren't going to like MST3k. The new show tried so desperately to appeal to everyone that it just lost its way. There are plenty of younger people who have the patience to wait for 10 seconds for a joke. They don't need to cram as many jokes in as possible. Season 0 and season 1 were too slow. Season 11 and 12 were a little too fast. We need to hit the middle ground.
It was good but not great. In some ways, I think Joel got too much money and tried to do everything for everyone and it just lost focus and came out flat. The cast was good but wasn't given enough to work with. The writing seemed to be near the bottom of the list of importance for the show.
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Post by zombiewhacker on Jun 17, 2020 16:49:23 GMT -5
You mentioned the writing...
One key to recapturing the feel of the original show would have been to have hired as many of the old writers as possible. Given the piecemeal way the new show was constructed, this might have even been possible.
Instead, at the end, Paul Chaplin contributed to four episodes on the new show. Bill Corbett and Mary Jo Pehl, two apiece. That's it. When Kate Micucci is credited on more episodes than Trace Beaulieu, Frank Coniff, Kevin Murphy, Josh Weinstein, Bridget Jones, and Michael J. Nelson combined, you've pretty much guaranteed that the new show will have a different feel to it. Not better or worse, necessarily, but certainly different.
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Post by Megalon on Jun 17, 2020 18:34:29 GMT -5
It had its faults, but so did Seasons 1-2 of the original series. The real tragedy is that Netflix axed the show after only 2 seasons (actually, after only 20 episodes, which is not even a full season by American TV standards). IMO, Netflix is the real villain of this story. If the show had been allowed to grow and evolve, I think it would have been a lasting success.
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Post by mylungswereaching on Jun 17, 2020 18:56:13 GMT -5
Netflix axes most of their newer shows after 2 or 3 seasons. They pay enough for a couple of seasons for the show to break even or make a small profit. The idea is that the outside company is allowed to sell it other places to make its real profit. They reduce the amount they are willing to pay after 2 or 3 years. If the show is making money in other ways it looks at this as a subsidy and free advertising. If it isn't it can't keep making the program.
It's the way TV worked for decades. Company A sells a TV show to CBS,ABC,NBC,Fox and makes a small profit. But they keep the rights to the show. They then make their real profits in syndication.
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Post by hippiecop on Jun 17, 2020 19:09:29 GMT -5
I personally will not consider it "offical" MST3K.
I consider it much in the same way that I think of Cinematic Titanic, Rifftrax, or even the Minneapolis episodes. Your mileage may vary, but for me, it's just been too long, it's too different, and didn't have enough episodes for me to think of it as my beloved series. For me, it ended that day in 1999, following "Danger: Diabolik" when Mike & The Bots sat down on the couch, snacks in hand, and began their wise-cracking back on Earth...
Fortunately, thanks to Rhino, and Shout, any Saturday night can be a visit with an old friend and time.
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Post by BoB3K on Jun 19, 2020 23:25:39 GMT -5
It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was a kickstarter. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show.It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. We the fans gave joel 5+ million dollars to make a new season. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It annoys me SOOOO much that NetFlix took the credit for bringing MST3K back and then did nothing with it. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show.It was not a NetFlix show.It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show.It was not a NetFlix show. I don't hate NetFlix, but I hate mis-information, and I hate binge-watching and, well, maybe I hate NetFlix. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show.
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Post by Megalon on Jun 20, 2020 12:04:58 GMT -5
It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. No, but Joel put the show's life in Netflix's hands when he signed a contract with an exclusivity clause (which he presumably did). By not ordering more episodes, Netflix effectively killed the reboot. |
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Post by mylungswereaching on Jun 20, 2020 12:25:10 GMT -5
It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was a kickstarter. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show.It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. We the fans gave joel 5+ million dollars to make a new season. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It annoys me SOOOO much that NetFlix took the credit for bringing MST3K back and then did nothing with it. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show.It was not a NetFlix show.It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show.It was not a NetFlix show. I don't hate NetFlix, but I hate mis-information, and I hate binge-watching and, well, maybe I hate NetFlix. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. It was not a NetFlix show. But that's how many network shows are. Much of the stuff that shows up on NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox is not produced by or owned by the networks. Paramount owns a lot of stuff that people think of as network stuff. |
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Post by monkeypretzel on Jun 20, 2020 19:01:13 GMT -5
For all the people online who say that the show would have found its groove if only there was another season...people said that after Season 11. "It's only the first season, give it time." My opinion is given what we've seen Joel produce for the live shows, it wasn't going to get better in the so-far fictional Season 13 as long as Joel was/is still 100% in charge. What you see, especially Season 11, is what he wanted to give us with those millions. The cast can't gel if they only have five or seven or ten days of being in the same production studio together every 12 or 18 months. The writing isn't going to improve if the virtual writing room has the same people working in isolation and each only working on a few episodes instead of the whole season. The performances are still going to feature the actors' eyes darting at the teleprompters to read their lines because they only have one take and too much material to memorize while they stand on their marks and talk at the static camera. The bots are still going to feel stiff and out-of-sync if the voice actors aren't running the puppets - and you're afraid to move them too much in case you ruin a take because there's no time for retakes - and because there are five other people in the puppet trench to do what two or three used to because, hey, the arms move now. Season 12 just continued the mistakes and in fact made them worse in some aspects because of the constant talking down to the audience for daring to complain about 11. At some point you have to accept that what you see is what you're getting and decide if that's enough for you. For a lot of fans it is, for some it isn't.
In other words, nothing can improve if the person making the show thinks it's good enough.
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Post by BoB3K on Jun 22, 2020 10:46:56 GMT -5
... it wasn't going to get better in the so-far fictional Season 13 as long as Joel was/is still 100% in charge ... In other words, nothing can improve if the person making the show thinks it's good enough. Great post. I might rewrite that last line to read -- Nothing can improve if the person making the show thinks what was good isn't good enough. |
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Post by Diet Kolos on Jun 22, 2020 11:36:24 GMT -5
I just can't imagine anyone, Joel or not, watching Seasons 11 or 12 subjectively and thinking "Yeah, this is what I wanted. This'll work."
It's very clearly an amalgamation of compromises and half-steps and very clearly not a finished product.
As a somewhat aside, classic Season 1 was this in a lot of respects, but I take issues with people, mostly on Reddit, saying Season 2 was still the some awkward formative mess of a show season 1 was. Season 2, particularly the end of Season 2 was GREAT. 207-213 alone is collectively better than all of Season 12. Better than most of Season 11, too.
Classic MST DID need 2 seasons to figure it out, and those were KTMA and Season 1. Leave Season 2 alone.
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Post by Megalon on Jun 22, 2020 11:52:46 GMT -5
Classic MST DID need 2 seasons to figure it out, and those were KTMA and Season 1. Another way to look at it: KTMA was 21 episodes. The Reboot was 20 episodes. Therefore, the Reboot wasn't even out of its KTMA phase yet. It was still finding its footing. |
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Post by crowschmo on Jun 22, 2020 12:10:38 GMT -5
BTW - a saw a live show and I thought it was a LOT better than the actual televised show. Wish they recorded a few live shows and released them on video or something. It had movement and realness and quirkiness and was more like the old show.
Edit: And chemistry. I think that was the main thing missing in the televised version because the riffs (I think was said) were pre-recorded - is that how they did it? -and there was no "off the cuff" feel like in previous incarnations. Even though scrpited, J&TB's and M&TB's sounded like they were just guys hanging out and goofing around. It didn't help, as others have said, that Baron and Hampton weren't the actual puppeteers and weren't even there "for realzies".
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She didn't have a personality and no interesting voice. She was just talking. They still could have upgraded her smarts while still making her quirky or something. Liked Rebecca fine as Synthia, I just think she should have made Gypsy's voice have more charater. Kinga and Max were OKAY. They were a bit much, but I think a toned down, more "silky evil" from Kinga would've helped instead of just regurgitating the term "nightmare fuel" and constantly being an in-your-face "we're on Netflix and we need ratings" corporate shill. She could've been a combo of Dr. F's slimy-evil-but-goofy and Pearl's um, Pearliness. Don't think she quite hit that. She wasn't 3 dimensional enough. Max was just kind of there.
