Here are my impressions of the continuation of probably my favorite show ever.
Honestly? It's good. A worthy addition.
Good things: the movies are just what you'd expect. It starts with Reptilicus, which is a European monster movie kind of reminiscent of Gorgo (another MST3K movie). Cry Wilderness is just so weird. Avalanche is an embarrassing "70's disaster" movie starring Rock Hudson and Mia Farrow.
StarCrash is a movie I'm very surprised that neither MST3K nor Rifftrax had done yet. It's just so perfect for them. I think I even saw this in the theaters. There are two 80's sword and sorcery movies (Wizards of the Lost Kingdom I & II) and a Christmas movie. All these movies were ripe for MST3K.
The writing is very sharp and very funny. The host segments are good; they seem more like the Mike era more than the Joel era.
Patton Oswalt (as TV's Son of TV's Frank) is a hoot. Something that seemed strange at first, but got much more welcome as the series went on: since they don't need to do commercial breaks on Netflix, they still put the breaks in. However, what you get is a MST3K moon graphic and Oswalt giving a quick 5-10 second recap of the movie and a station identification ("You're watching Deep 13 TV!") I like the band that plays during these breaks and recognized the songs they were playing from the old series ("Creepy Girl" in Catalina Caper is played often).
Felicia Day is okay as Kinga Forrester. She's an decent, not great, actress. Pearl, Bobo and Brain Guy make a welcome appearance or two.
I don't have anything that I didn't like.more nitpicks than anything else.
For the first few episodes, you can tell the nerves of the riffers is pretty high. They overwrote the jokes and the delivery seems TOO rapid-fire. They should have cut out about 20% of the jokes to allow breathing room. They do seem to get more comfortable as the series goes on.
Their voices also sound a little similar to each other. I recognize Jonah Ray's voice most of the time, but Crow and Servo I still get confused as to which one's talking.
And there is one way that advances in technology isn't necessarily a good thing: The set of the SOL is a table in front of a green screen of the back wall. I really, really REALLY wish they'd build a real physical set for them to act in front of. The green screen is so obvious, that it doesn't look like there's any depth to the SOL. I miss the hexfield viewscreen in the background. Deep 13 also doesn't seem like there's much to it either.
There are also some cameos that drop by and they are also filmed in front of a green screen. It feels like these people may not have even been on the set and could have filmed their scenes anywhere. The disconnect is a little jarring. Also, some of the cameos seem like fan-service. I wish they'd have gotten Mike Nelson to do some of them, as he did most of the characters when Joel was the host.
Oh, the setup for this new series in the first few minutes of the first episode isn't very good. Again, there are a couple of fan-service cameos that I didn't care for who we see before anyone else. I kind of wish they had just dropped that scene completely and just let the theme song tell us what we need to know, just like in the original series.
So, what did anyone else think?
Honestly? It's good. A worthy addition.
Good things: the movies are just what you'd expect. It starts with Reptilicus, which is a European monster movie kind of reminiscent of Gorgo (another MST3K movie). Cry Wilderness is just so weird. Avalanche is an embarrassing "70's disaster" movie starring Rock Hudson and Mia Farrow.
StarCrash is a movie I'm very surprised that neither MST3K nor Rifftrax had done yet. It's just so perfect for them. I think I even saw this in the theaters. There are two 80's sword and sorcery movies (Wizards of the Lost Kingdom I & II) and a Christmas movie. All these movies were ripe for MST3K.
The writing is very sharp and very funny. The host segments are good; they seem more like the Mike era more than the Joel era.
Patton Oswalt (as TV's Son of TV's Frank) is a hoot. Something that seemed strange at first, but got much more welcome as the series went on: since they don't need to do commercial breaks on Netflix, they still put the breaks in. However, what you get is a MST3K moon graphic and Oswalt giving a quick 5-10 second recap of the movie and a station identification ("You're watching Deep 13 TV!") I like the band that plays during these breaks and recognized the songs they were playing from the old series ("Creepy Girl" in Catalina Caper is played often).
Felicia Day is okay as Kinga Forrester. She's an decent, not great, actress. Pearl, Bobo and Brain Guy make a welcome appearance or two.
I don't have anything that I didn't like.more nitpicks than anything else.
For the first few episodes, you can tell the nerves of the riffers is pretty high. They overwrote the jokes and the delivery seems TOO rapid-fire. They should have cut out about 20% of the jokes to allow breathing room. They do seem to get more comfortable as the series goes on.
Their voices also sound a little similar to each other. I recognize Jonah Ray's voice most of the time, but Crow and Servo I still get confused as to which one's talking.
And there is one way that advances in technology isn't necessarily a good thing: The set of the SOL is a table in front of a green screen of the back wall. I really, really REALLY wish they'd build a real physical set for them to act in front of. The green screen is so obvious, that it doesn't look like there's any depth to the SOL. I miss the hexfield viewscreen in the background. Deep 13 also doesn't seem like there's much to it either.
There are also some cameos that drop by and they are also filmed in front of a green screen. It feels like these people may not have even been on the set and could have filmed their scenes anywhere. The disconnect is a little jarring. Also, some of the cameos seem like fan-service. I wish they'd have gotten Mike Nelson to do some of them, as he did most of the characters when Joel was the host.
Oh, the setup for this new series in the first few minutes of the first episode isn't very good. Again, there are a couple of fan-service cameos that I didn't care for who we see before anyone else. I kind of wish they had just dropped that scene completely and just let the theme song tell us what we need to know, just like in the original series.
So, what did anyone else think?