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Post by comedyc on Jun 13, 2023 13:18:50 GMT -5
The episodes/hosts were matched by luck of the draw
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Post by starschwar on Jun 17, 2023 20:21:38 GMT -5
The episodes/hosts were matched by luck of the draw
That sounds about right.
Well, I'm all caught up. After a whole season of buildup - with the unfunny Dr. Kabal catchphrase (what a NOTHING character he turned out to be) and "villains can't hear rhyme" gag - we finally got all three hosts together.... for the last chunk of an episode. With no bots alongside them. Even when they actually did the cool thing, they did it wrong. Seriously, did I not understand what was being promised? Or did the show runners? Hyping up a multi-host episode... to only feature a few minutes of them together was a baffling decision. One of many.
But before I sound ungrateful - more MST3K is always a good thing. And let me give a sincere thank you to everybody who contributed to the Kickstarter or bought in to Gizmoplex to have made these episodes possible. Even just a few years ago, the thought of having any post-Sci-Fi channel MST3K was a wild dream at best, and I am thankful for what we have.
It wasn't the worst season - riffing was much better than anything pre-Godzilla, and it was probably better than Jonah's second year as well. I had a lot of laughs, despite some major missed opportunities and a lot of bad host segments.
I'm glad we're getting more. I hope that going forward, they can up the quality of writing for the host segments. I can live with the bad effects, but please - build a backdrop for the SOL and let our gumball machine be a gumball machine again. And if it comes down to it... they can ditch the mads in favor of cheaper or more enthused actors. If we need to go back to one host and set of 'bots, that's fine. If the current system is more cost effective, they can all stay, that's fine, too.
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Post by Megalon on Sept 25, 2023 14:07:52 GMT -5
Has anyone done any aggregate rankings for Season 13? I remember an old thread for Season 11 (and maybe 12), where someone did this, and it was quite interesting to see how the different episodes stacked up, not just against each other, but also against the original series.
Speaking of which, I have an old Excel spreadsheet for Seasons 1-10 where someone normalized the ratings across 10 or so different MST3k review sites and came up with an average rating for all the original episodes. It was posted here many years ago, but I can no longer find the original post. Does anyone have a link? I think the poster was the same person who collected the ratings for Season 11.
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Post by kracker on Sept 25, 2023 17:26:43 GMT -5
www.ratingraph.com/tv-shows/mystery-science-theater-3000-ratings-65175/Best you're going to get, takes all the ratings from iMDB, which is probably still where you got the most people voting on TV show episodes. Granted the number of votes for the Season 13 episodes hasnt even reached triple digits. How it stacks against the old series: the rankings are most comparable to how Season 3 ranked.
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Post by BoB3K on Sept 26, 2023 11:49:31 GMT -5
The big thing to look at there is the number of votes in the second chart. It's the first 'proof' I've seen of how ineffective the gizmoplex was. No episode had even half the votes of the worst 'netflix' season, and it did not grow throughout the season but actually shrank. So, Joel may be holding on to his core ks-paying audience, barely, but the show hasn't kept its larger public audience.
Looking at the original show, it had around double the votes, which isn't surprising since it was on public TV and has been around for years. But again, it shows that Joel never built any new lasting audience for the show.
Also, the vote size is VERY important to the actual ratings. What happens with many shows is as their audience drops in later seasons, it's the core audience that stays with it, so average ratings tend to go up as audience goes down. (not always, especially when a show doesn't 'stick the landing' like GoT.) So, comparing Reboot ratings to Original ratings when they have such different audience size is probably pointless. It actually makes sense that the core audience would like the new eps about as much as the most liked old eps.
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Post by Megalon on Sept 26, 2023 12:48:10 GMT -5
I see this a lot with book series too (on Goodreads, for example). The initial instalment might have a 3.8/5 average, while the later instalments have much fewer ratings but a higher average (4+/5). This is obviously because the people who disliked the first book are less likely to go on to the second (or the third, or the fourth, etc.).
This audience attrition is somewhat reinforced by fan culture as well, especially (in my experience) in TV fandom. Dissatisfied viewers tend to get bullied to the point that they stop supporting the show and contributing to the fandom (common refrain: "If you don't like it then leave."). MST3k fans are generally nice, but I witnessed a little of this on MST3kInfo back in 2017/2018. Some people didn't like Season 11, and they eventually left the site because of the grief they were getting. It's very unlikely that they went on to support Season 12 or 13. More likely they took their antagonists' advice and simply left, never to return.
By the way, I've seen this play out in a number of fandoms, and it's almost always at least a little amusing to watch. Usually some divisive new instalment drops and a significant number of people complain. But instead of listening to the complaints, the die-hard fans close ranks and bully the complainers out of the community, leaving only the die-hard fans, who can now gloat in their negativity-free echo chamber in peace. When their favorite TV show/video game series is inevitably cancelled due to lack of viewers, they express shock and dismay: "OMG, I don't believe it! How is this possible? Literally everyone I know loves it!" It never occurs to them that the complainers might have had valid points and their own actions in chasing them away might be what led directly to their favorite show's cancellation.
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Post by kracker on Sept 26, 2023 16:36:01 GMT -5
The big thing to look at there is the number of votes in the second chart. It's the first 'proof' I've seen of how ineffective the gizmoplex was. No episode had even half the votes of the worst 'netflix' season, and it did not grow throughout the season but actually shrank. So, Joel may be holding on to his core ks-paying audience, barely, but the show hasn't kept its larger public audience. Looking at the original show, it had around double the votes, which isn't surprising since it was on public TV and has been around for years. But again, it shows that Joel never built any new lasting audience for the show. Also, the vote size is VERY important to the actual ratings. What happens with many shows is as their audience drops in later seasons, it's the core audience that stays with it, so average ratings tend to go up as audience goes down. (not always, especially when a show doesn't 'stick the landing' like GoT.) So, comparing Reboot ratings to Original ratings when they have such different audience size is probably pointless. It actually makes sense that the core audience would like the new eps about as much as the most liked old eps. Yes I've noted that the number of votes for Season 13 hasn't reached triple digits yet, thank you very much. The old series had an average number of votes of 500 per ep. Now what you are conveniently ignoring is that the old MST3K has been collecting votes, well, since iMDB started. The Return has been collecting votes for over 5 years. Season 13 finished less than a year ago and since it hasn't hit that 20-year old 500 avg, "welp Gizmoplex is a failure ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ confirmation bias satisfied!". Time is the big factor when you are dealing with a cult TV show rather than a really popular series like GOT; Brand new episodes are going to have way less votes than older ones. More votes are more indictive of when episodes get discussed or debated more (once again see GOT), not audience size. It's not as simple "less votes mean Joel dumb now" Yes, when you have a show on its own exclusive platform, you are going to have a more limited audience. Water is also wet, btw. No one ever thought the Gizmoplex could ever compete with freakin' Netflix. The point of the Gizmoplex wasn't to somehow eclipse Netflix's viewership. The point was to have less, but get a bigger piece of the pie, like 100%, retain full ownership of the show which was why Netflix was obviously not viable. But if it wasn't for the Gizmoplex, the audience would be ZERO. MST3K would have NO audience. Because there would be no episodes. Seriously, what's your brilliant genius idea? Joel should have just sold out his IP to Netflix? And then have Netflix tank the show instead with Joel having to wrangle the rights to his own show all over again? Maybe just give Comedy Central a call and since that's all that's keeping them from picking up the show again and getting that large public audience like hes supposed to?
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Post by floatinginspace82 on Oct 22, 2023 20:22:35 GMT -5
SEASON 13 IS TEARING US APART!!! lol its funny every time I come back to check in on the forum there is always a old is better new is meh and vice versa, and I will be honest I am a fan of the OG series. The New series is fine but Im not gonna bend over backwards to say its better to the OG or it coming close to it. I understand that the people that defend NUMST3K have a fondness for it because it may have been their gate way into the series or what have you but the original show to me had better writing hands down. Mike Nelson being the head writer really defined MST3K into what it was, with out Mike.. in my opinion it loses that magic. When it came back the first time and I saw how many writers on the show their were I knew right then and there it wasn't going to be anywhere near the MST3K I grew up with. I've enjoyed a few episodes of the newer seasons but as a whole the newer stuff just isn't for me. I just dont understand the vitriol is all.
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Post by kracker on Oct 22, 2023 21:33:30 GMT -5
yeah I can safely say there's no "vice versa" argument. Everyone agrees the OG MST3K is better. I've always said Mike Nelson was even more important to the show than Joel and I wish he was still running the show but sadly he has his own MST3K empire hes invested so much into now, which also doesn't have the magic of MST3K, by any stretch of the imagination.
NuMST3K not having the magic of the old show is kind of water is wet argument, but The Return grasped it for a moment, it was a great start that they needed to follow-up on.
The GIZMOPLEX = writing seems to have suffered greatly because of various handicaps: pandemic production, no more sets or studio support, cast shakeup, trying to retain full ownership of show, and probably so much more we aren't seeing behind the scenes. I don't know how I completely feel about the episodes, sometime ill rewatch now that I have the blu-ray, but they are far from being dumpster fires.
The thing is about this forum is that it sends the needle on my buIIpoop!e detector flying across the room, everything from "actors shouldn't get residuals because I don't get residuals" to "not having as many iMDB votes yet is 'proof' everyone agrees with me that nuMST3K sucks". The cynicism just gets more rank than year-old block of Limburger cheese, which is fine really, you don't like the show anymore, not everyone is going to, but the arguments needed to support such cynicism just get shamelessly vitriolic and outlandish.
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Post by BoB3K on Oct 23, 2023 12:16:52 GMT -5
It could just be midwestern modesty, but Mike has publicly stated that his 'head writing' credit was mostly because he could type and so he collated all the riffs from the writers room into a script on his Mac, and that he didn't actually have any more input or control over the content.
I used to think that Joel was the most important, even though I still like SciFi eps, but going on all the data we have now, I think he was more just the idea guy, but still important in the writers room. I mean, his voice definitely came through in his eps in the CC era.
Nowadays, I think the whole writers room of Mike, Joel, Trace, and Frank was where the gold was, not forgetting Mary Jo, Paul Chaplin, and even Jim Mallon filling out the voice and style too. But those first four I think all balanced each other with old and new, deep and shallow, silly and esoteric.
Once you got to the SciFi years, I think that the writing got more shallow, more often relying on make fun of bad actors / sets type jokes, even veering into just plain meanness, like to Joe Don Baker or Japanese culture.
...Upon reviewing my post, I noticed I left out Kevin. I love Kevin, I love Tom Servo, but after all these years, I've decided Kevin is more of a performer and a roll with it kind of guy. It's evidenced in the fact that he was the only mst3ker other than Jim Mallon to last the whole run, and then quickly hooked up with Rifftrax and has continued there. I'm not saying he doesn't have writing talent, I just think it's secondary with him. I think his biggest talent is being a big fun warm guy, on and off camera.
I guess we could mention the perfomances overall. SciFi years were good, with a lot of actual skits being better written and produced, but the best performance team, riffing and hosting has to be Joel, Kevin and Trace, and Trace and Frank. Those guys are all second city quality comedic performers. And coming back to Nu MST3K, both are far superior to Nu MST3K, although as kracker mentions, you can't just point the finger at one thing, it's not just the talent, it's the bad production setup, no network support, no stability.
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Post by majorjoe23 on Nov 6, 2023 14:11:53 GMT -5
Nate Begle speaks! He did an interview where he talked about leaving the show: youtu.be/Gp96TxjZ-yQ?t=3214His stated reasoning is new parenthood prevented him from returning to film more with the show.
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Post by Diet Kolos on Nov 6, 2023 14:21:08 GMT -5
Considering his total social media blackout/removing MST3K from his resume, it seemed a lot worse at the time. Hope I get to hear his Crow one day.
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Post by kracker on Nov 6, 2023 15:57:33 GMT -5
Was coming here to post that lol.
He also mentioned Connor got COVID during the tour so I'm sure that also hindered production. He was out for two weeks.
Nate, though, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Number one, not like he spontaneously had a kid, normally you carve out the paternity leave in your work schedule. Hey, i know im having a kid so perfect time to go out on tour instead of doing voice work for the show (since we know overdubbing the robots is a thing) and letting my understudy go instead and take over any remaining puppet work. This was the season that was being done remote, he couldn't voice remote? Then Number Two, Nate becoming he who we shall not speak of, instead of Joel or Matt explaining the shakeup to backers. It's such a legit reason, why the coverup. Then you have the forementioned blackout and credential wipe. Also, really sus when he keeps reminding us over and over that he had a kid, as if he's really trying to sell it and drive it home. the kid just doesn't explain away the strange.
EDIT: This is my guess about what really happened and I think it lines up with everything: The work got too stressful with so many things happening at once and he used the kid as his way out. Joel was none too happy with Nate breaking such a commitment and probably neither was his fellow cast as it resulted in them having to do extra work under the constraints and the deadline. And so because of that, the two parties distanced themselves from each other.
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Post by slainmonkey on Dec 31, 2023 13:42:50 GMT -5
I feel Season 13 may just be the worst (barring maybe the KTMA episodes), honestly I feel even season 1 had more charm to it, where season 13 felt hollow to me. I feel between too many compromises, a terrible Crow for the Emily and Joel episodes, and many all round baffling creative decisions left the show lacking any heart and soul left. Given that this likely is the end of MST3k, I feel it’s a very sour note to go out on.
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Post by RedTom on Dec 31, 2023 19:31:09 GMT -5
I still say they pressured Nate out. That was FAR too sudden and obtuse an exit to be as heartwarmingly genuine as they seem to want us to think, but that is for later. Right now, yeah, I'm going to say it, I feel outright betrayed.
Like SO MANY franchises we've had to endure go down the drain because of a certain zeitgeist, we have, once again, seen another take the plunge. This time, Joel welcomed it with open arms, essentially showing us loyalty was a laughable concept to begin with. Whether it was a conscious decision or something he looked around and could no longer control, honestly, I don't care. The fact of the matter is that he consciously spoke the words, forsaking his former work for its offensive material and saying "The World has woken up since then."
Welp, I cope in my own ways, but I especially want to heal with a group that understands. I am grateful that I seemingly have found one and I hope that our friction is only surface level and joking. I can't take another asshole freaking out over the word "Gypsy" or anything even close to nonpraise for their new sacrificial lam--- I mean hostess...
YES I am still bitter. Give me time.
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