Mystery Science Theater 3000: Season 11 BD + Screen Caps

THE MOVIE — 3.75/5

The original Mystery Science Theater 3000 started out on a Minneapolis cable access back in 1988, moved to Comedy Central a year later for 7 seasons before being cancelled and picked up for a further 3 seasons on SyFy when it ended its run in 1999. That is quite the journey from cable access and has garnered a large and loyal fan base. After its run, some of the talent/creators would go on to make Rifftrax where they would roast any movie.

Personally, I have listened to a few of those Trax, but never got fully invested and instead would sink my time into the old series as Shout Factory until Volume 39 would be the last they could release as any outstanding episodes could not be made available due to copyright issues. So, it was with great pleasure to learn that, thanks to a Kickstarter campaign, a new season would be produced and eventually got a deal to stream on Netflix, a service I actually don’t have (I know… I know…).

Well, I finally got an opportunity to sit down and watch all 14 episodes and although it was somewhat jarring (for the lack of a better word) seeing a new and (to me) unknown person hosting, named Jonah Ray, by the third or fourth episode, I really began digging his style of humor and working off of ‘bot pals Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot. With the old show, I was probably more of a fan of Mike Nelson versus Joel Hodgson, but it seems Jonah was a great choice for the revival.

The season has the three sitting down to watch terrible movies by their evil overlord Kinga Forrester (FELICIA DAY) and her faithful sidekick Max aka TV’s Son of TV’s Frank (PATTON OSWALT). The “set-up” for the revival has Jonah as a transport driver tricked by Forrester going out of range from his company to the dark side of the moon where the base resides.

Even though, as with the old series, this season had a dud or two (I didn’t particularly laugh at or even enjoy “The Beast of Hollow Mountain” or “Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II”) because there are movies so bad that they didn’t lend to the hosts getting much material to work off of.

SPECIAL FEATURES – 4.0/5

This 8-disc set comes housed in an extra-wide Blu-ray case which side-slides into a matted slip cover. The only bonus is the extensive We Brought Back MST3K Documentary (1:13:16; HD) chronicling the process of this eleventh season with great behind-the-scenes footage, interviews with the cast/crew and even Kickstarter backers, and more. Really makes up for the lack of features on the individual episodes.

VIDEO – 4.0/5

AUDIO – 3.5/5

OVERALL – 3.0/5

Does Mystery Science Theater 3000: Season 11 match up with the highs of the original series? Not quite, but it does come pretty close even if the season was on the uneven side and a couple episodes weren’t quite up to snuff for my comedic taste. Outside of that, though, I actually did warm up to Jonah as the new host and seeing the robot friend’s back was just great.