In the not too distant future. Next Sunday, AD. There was a guy named Jonah, not too different from you or me. He worked at Gizmonic Institute, Just another mug in a yellow jumpsuit. A distress call came in for him at half-past noon that’s when an evil woman trapped him on the dark side of the moon! I’ll send him cheesy movies the worst I can find (la la la). He’ll have to sit and watch them all and we’ll monitor his mind (la la la). Now keep in mind that Jonah can’t control when the movies begin or end. So he’ll have to keep his sanity, with the help of his robot friends! Robot Roll Call! Cambot!  Gypsy! Tom Servo, Crooooow! If you’re wondering how he eats and breathes and other science facts (la la la), Then repeat to yourself, “It’s just a show I should really just relax” For Mystery Science Theater 3000!

Ok did you get all that? it basically explained the plot of the show, a guy and a bunch of robots riff crappy movies, that’s about it.( copying that took longer than expected).

The series originally started in the late 80s and lasted till the end of the 90s with that single premise it was basically showing old crappy movies but with people mocking it while you watched. There would be little bits in between as well as before and after involving the characters – the human subjected to the movies, his robot friends and the mad nutters subjecting him to it as he’s trapped in the Satellite of Love (that’s its name).

As the internet age continues those people who grew up with it shared knowledge online (and videos) and it continued to garner a fan base as well as inspiring many of the internet reviewers that we have today. ( If you watch any reviewer on YouTube that has a robot, MST3K was probably involved). Several years ago a kick starter was started to make a new season of the show and it was backed and backed and backed (as in kickstarter backer, implying lots of money was given by the fans) if you’re wondering how many people supported it, the credits are long and then you realize, that’s only a small portion of them 🙂

The season (which is on Netflix) is 14 episodes long and stars Jonah Ray as Jonah Heston as the poor victim forced to watch the films with the robots (who now can do a few more things than they could in the old series, like Gypsy showing up in the theater and Tom Servo able to fly in the theater, Crow is perfect as he always was). With Felicia Day as mad scientist Kinga Forrester and the excellent Patton Oswalt as her assistant TV’s Son of TV’s Frank aka Max. We get back and forth between the victims and the mads (as Kinga and Max are called) at the beginning and end of each episode as well as skits during breaks from each film.

Each episode is one movie, so fortunately as this is Netflix I can enjoy the episode on Reptilicus and then skip the boring as hell Cry Wilderness (the show can help mitigate a boring movie but only so much). The new show also recreates the look of using paper models when showing the futuristic stuff outside of the Satellite of Love, like space ships or when we see Gizmonic Institute in the first episode.

Also it’s clear a fair few well known people loved the original since we get cameos from famous nerdy people like Will Wheton and Neil Patrick Harris in some episodes (usually for less than 5 minutes) and a few cameos from people from the classic series.

Of course as said the movie they are watching will affect your enjoyment of that episode, I love monster films so I tend to gravitate to the episodes with monsters more than as mentioned a bunch of people lost in the woods which may or may not contain bigfoot (yeah just skip that one). And since there are 14 you should find some you will probably re watch when you have an hour and a half free.

The series recently got a second season of the new series aka season 12, The Gauntlet – with the theme of them forcing Jonah to watch six cheesy movies back to back rather than having them spaced apart (a bit of a joke on the culture of bing watching shows me thinks) and I’m hoping there are more to come.

Just a note you can check their website too, they have a bunch of the classic episodes uploaded there to enjoy.