Format change and other news

I didn't much care for the 1-6 score system, so I changed it to the more popular A-F grade system. I may go back and re-write the KTMA final verdicts, but if I do it will be a while before I get around to it. I went ahead and translated the scores into the proper grades in the episode guide though. Also, for my new reviwes I will only write the random thoughts about the season when I actually have random thoughts to put down. It's just a pain in the load-pan to try and thing of something to say about a season in general for every single review.


The KTMA season overview will be comming later on, in the mean time the blog will still enter it's SEASON 1 phase. Also, I may post a few non-review realted content on the site from time to time.

K21 The Legend of Dinosaurs

K21 The Legend of Dinosaurs: Here we are, the final episode of the KTMA season. I'll say this: It was a very interesting ride. While not as funny as many of the nationally aired seasons, there was still enough laughs to be had to make the experience far from painful. Even though there are a lot of rough episodes, there are still times where you can see the brilliance start to seep out. This is the final episode, KTMA's send off. It's time to say goodbye to TV 23, and hello to a new beginning....

I love giant monster movies. I love "Jaws" knock offs. This would lead one to think that I would love this movie. However this flick fell into the hands of Sandy Frank. We stared with Sandy Frank and we're ending with Sandy Frank. This is a silly giant monster flick with strange editing and inappropriate music. Much like the Gamera films before it, "The Legend of Dinosaurs" exists in another USA cut titled "The Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds". I've never seen that cut, but from what I heard it's far more enjoyable.
Verdict: 3/4-Watchable! It's silly fun...but the inappropriate music and bad edits get a bit annoying.

There have been a few episodes that managed to get a good laugh out of me, but this episode surprised me. To be honest, the riffing here doesn't feel like it should be in a KTMA episode. It feels more like riffing from a season 3 episode! The riffing here was hilarious! I never expected to laugh so hard at a KTMA episode. The humor was spot on and there where some real sidebusters in the theater. The boys really managed to surprise me this time.

Open: The mads try to use the Beatles' "Paul is dead" rumor to their advantage and try to come up with evidence that Joel is dead.
Seg1: Joel shows the bot's how you can make something look huge when I giant boy attacks the SOL.
Seg2: The SOL as a cheesy sitcom with bad puns an laugh tracks galore!
seg3: Joel shows the bots some more special effects with the help of his fire breathing dinosaur toy.
End: The boys talk about what they're going to do over the summer.  
Overall: I got a bit of a kick out of the Opener and seg 2. The later was a pretty decent parody.

Verdict: 5/6-Great! While the host segments are just a bit meh, the boys rocked the theater. This is defiantly KTMA's magnum opus.

K19 Hangar 18

K19 Hangar 18: Here I go, I've only got two episodes left with KTMA. I must admit, while this has been a bit of a rocky experience, I still had my fun. Particularly in the host segs. They seemed to have a lot of fun filming them and these later episodes have some really clever ones. Sure, the later seasons had some classics, but I'd rather take a KTMA host segment over any of the season 7 segments with Pearl *shudders* we'll cross that bridge when we come to it...

Hangar 18 was a little 1980's sci-fi flick that actually surprised me! It's got some convincing acting and some really smart writing. I actually got into this one quite a bit! The plot is very intriguing, even to the point of having a twist that doesn't suck! There's even an intense scene or two. The worst they can find? I don't think so...
Verdict: 4/4-Fun! A neat little sci-fi flick that had some talent behind it, and a clever script.

This episode started out really good! Sadly, it slowed down after a bit. However, there where still plenty of steady chuckles and a bunch of good, hard laughs to be had. Josh seemed to be especially one top of his game for this one. At one point he practically dominates the theater, while trace and Joel are all but mute!

Opener: Joel says "The movie is Hangar 18, MOVIE SIGN!!". Huh.
Seg1: Joel prepares for a meteor shower while Crow bombards him with questions. Mostly just "Why?", much like a five-year old.
Seg2: Joel and the bots delete some of Crow's memory, including every episode of Punky Brewster.
Seg3: The boys check out Crow's first memory. In said memory they find out that Crow's name stands for Cybernetic Remotely Operated Woman!! However, it was just a joke.
End: Joel announces that the fan club is close to 1,000 members! The 1,000th member will win a demon dog. Lucky schmuck...
Overall: What the heck was up with the opener? That has to be the shortest host segment in all of MST3K history! We got a batch of winners this time around. I really like seg 2 and seg 3. Crow's one lucky bot for having every episode of "Punky Brewster" deleted from his memory.

Verdict: 3/6-Fine! This was another tuff call. It pushes the line between 3 and 4, but in the end, a few slow parts land this right at the halfway point.

K18 The Million Eyes of Su-Maru

K18 The Million Eyes Of Su-Maru: One of the (thousand) things that I love about MST3K is how much character the bot's puppeteers put into them. I don't just mean verbally either, the bots physical expressions work very well on their own level. It took quite a while for Josh and Trace to really get things down and the KTMA bots where very clunky. But, eventually they started to catch on.

This movie just didn't settle well with me. Mabey it was the obnoxious womanizing hero. Mabey it was the fact that the only way that these women where able to be defeated without being shot was to be easily seduced. Mabey it was the line about the strong and independent female crime lord Su-Muru saying the line about needing "a man to force himself on her". I just can't quite put my finger on it....
Verdict: 2/4-Bad! Yeah, it's a sixties spy flick, but it's also incredibly sexist.

This started out as your run-of-the mill KTMA giggle fest but then Servo has to leave to bake brownies for the Pinewood Derby. With arguably the biggest laugh generator absent from the theater, the quality of the theater segments quickly drops.

Opener: The mads find Joel outside of the SOL. Joel finds a way back inside.
Seg1: Joel punishes the bots for not letting him back inside in K17.
Seg2: The boys play some strange courtroom and game-show thing.
Seg3: The boys play an acoustic version of the theme song.
End: Joel has to move Servo's mouth for him.
Overall: I found most of these segments to be rather forgettable. Well, except for seg 2. What the heck was that about!?

Verdict: 2/6-Meh! I got few giggles, but after Servo left it stared to tank.

K17 Time of the Apes

K17 Time of the Apes: Almost all of the Sandy Frank flicks riffed during this season would later be re-riffed during Mystery Science Theater 3000's epic 3rd season. And rightfully so. There where a lot of missed opportunities and a good chunk of Sandy Frank KTMA episodes wound up as being rather banal.

Oh me oh my Time of the Apes is a silly film. It's a kid friendly Japanese rip-off of Planet of the Apes. However, this one's message is weird and confusing, the plot has no idea what it's doing, and, par of the course the dubbing is hilarious. To me this was always one of the legendary strange MST3K flicks. It's up there With Incredibly Strange Creatures and Gamera VS Gurion.
Verdict: 3/4-Watchable! It's crazy, silly, and just plain Weird, which makes it oddly entertaining.

Now Joel is the one that's Missing! It looks like it's the bots that are running the show this time around! So, just how did Josh and Trace stack up without Joel? Surprisingly well. The ruffing starts out strong, and stays at a steady pace through-out most of the episode. However, near the end the riffing gets a bit sparser. I'd consider this to be some of the best theater segments that I've seen in the season so far. Compared to the usual KTMA episode that is.

Opener: The Mads try to get the Bots to tell them where Joel is, but the bots won't say.
Seg1: The bot's look for Joel. Eventually they find his jumpsuit and figure that he floating naked in space!
Seg2: Crow and Servo talk about whether or not they should let Joel back inside.
Seg3: Servo explains reality, with the help of Cambot.
End: With Joel floating in space, Tom and Crow talk about life without him.
Overall: I really liked this batch of segments. We get to see footage of K01 in Seg3, which got me a bit excited, I'll admit. I really liked seeing Servo and Crow have their chance to just hang out.

Verdict: 3/6-Fine! I'm a bit reluctant to give this episode such a low rating. I had a lot of fun with the host segments, and there was some fun to be has in the theater. It Just falls short of being a true 4/6.

K16 City On Fire

K16 City On Fire: We're not quite there yet, but I'm starting to notice that MST3K is starting to take shape. The riffing isn't AS sparse as it was in earlier episodes, the fan club is around, the host segments have a bit more thought behind them, the boys are settling into their characters nicely, and letters are read at the end of each episode.

City On Fire is yet another mad for TV movie full of washed-up stars. It's no SST Death flight, but COF is certainly better than "Superdome". There was actual effort put into the acting (well, for the most part), but oh boy is this a tuff flick to sit through. This has got to be THE most soul-suckingly depressing movie of the KTMA season. It has an extremely downbeat tone, and when you throw in heaping helpings of innocent people burning to death you've got 90 minuets of pure unledded depression.
Verdict: 1/4-Awful! I say this just because I have a very hard time with how depressing I find this flick.

I'll say this much, at least the boys are trying (and pretty hard, to add) to make this one funny. There are some pretty funny lines here or there and there was a couple of giggles to be had, but this movie, oh man this movie is also trying very hard. Trying very hard at depressing the audience that is! Sadly, not even Joel and the bots can make it very funny. Sorry boys, I guess that you'll have to try harder next time.

Opener: The mads have to change their licenses to being "mildly peeved researchers".
Seg1: The bots pull the old "black eye telescope" gag on Joel. Bad puns fallow.
Seg2: Joel's hell in a hand basket.
Seg3: Joel and the bots have a marching song, with Joel as the drill instructor.
End: Joel shows off fan club stuff.
Overall: The opener was really good. Seg 3 had a lot of charm to it and I found it pretty funny as well. The rest of the segments felt more like filler to me.

Verdict: 2/6-Meh! Two good host segs and a few good lines in the theater save this episode from an Ack. The movie just sucks the life out of this ep.

K15 Superdome

K15 Superdome: I know that it might seem cruel to be reviewing this season and comparing it to the rest of the show. It's like walking up to a sixth grader and giving him a pop geometry quiz, and then comparing his scores to that of a college freshman. But, I do have a good reason. One of the reasons that I started doing this was to see for myself just what makes this show so amazing and a huge part of that is looking back at the history. I mean, in order to understand something properly, we have to know where it came from...

Superdome is a made of TV film about the superbowl...or I should say it's a made for TV movie about a figgin' TON of side plots that involve a series of murders (and Dick Butkus). Oh man, is this a slow, and very, very depressing. I didn't much care for this film. I could imagine that it was a bit tuff to poke fun at something this banal. It doesn't help much that all of the side plots make this this movie extremely confusing. The plots don't really start to come together until the end and by then my interests where lost.
Verdict: 1/4-Awful! Slow, depressing, and confusing.

I guess that I was right. It's pretty hard to make fun of a movie that's this boring and confused. The movie really fights back hard, especially early on. The first two theater segments are riddled with silence, and with this crap of a movie it's much less tolerated than usual. The final theater segment picks up alright, and there where just enough laughs sprinkled throughout to save it form being a snoozer...barely.

Opener: While writing a letter Tom remembers the time that he almost convinced the mads to bring the SOL crew down to earth, but then Crow blew it.
Seg1: Servo flashes back to getting shocked (see K13).
Seg2: Servo writes about what Joel is like off screen, with another flashback (a fake one, like in the opener) that shows Joel as a bossy jerk.
Seg3: Servo has a heartfelt flashback montage.
End: Joel has letters, fanart, and fan club info!
Overall: I really liked the host segments. They parody the old flashback episode troupe really well. I found seg2 to be possibly one of the best host seg so far. But, seg3 kinda tugged on my heartstrings, despite the fact that it was not the bit's intention. I think that it perfectly sums up how I think of the season. Yeah, it's not hilarious, but look at them! These are friends, having fun, and making memories.

Verdict: 2/6-Meh! Despite the solid host segments, the the movie drags this one down, and the silence in the theater doesn't help much.