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.