In the not-too-distant future...
Somewhere in time and space...
Mike Nelson and his robot pals are caught in an endless chase...
I've been watching a lot of Mystery Science Theater 3000 lately, mostly because I've had a nasty sinus infection and have been spending afternoons in bed in front of the television, but also because the series is ending its fifteen year run on television today. Yes, the show has been out of production since 1999, but the reruns have endured every Saturday morning on the Sci-Fi Channel and, despite having the last three years of the series plus a smattering of older episodes on VHS tape, I continue to watch the weekly broadcast. At 11:00am PT today, something special will vanish from television, perhaps forever. I cannot let this moment pass without making a few comments about the series and what it means to me.
The first episode of the show I ever saw was a rerun of a Season Three experiment, The Human Duplicators, but it was episode 701 (Night of the Blood Beast) that was my first new episode way back in 1996. It took me a while to figure out just what I was seeing. Yes, I caught on to the wisecracks at the movie right away, but who were the gumball machine and the golden reindeer? Why were they watching these horrible movies and why do some episodes have this "Major Nelson" guy and others that sleepy-eyed stoned guy? Thanks to the Internet I caught up on the show's backstory and soon realized just who these people were and what they were doing on the Satellite of Love. Just as I'd begun to watch the series, I learned that it had been cancelled and would end after episode 706, Laserblast. It was around this time that I knew I had to tape as many episodes as I could. Not since the age of five and the childrens' show Gigglesnort Hotel had I sought to tape as many episodes of a television show as possible (yes, I am aware that my two television taping quests revolve around puppets. I am not sure what this means). Over the summer of 1996 my parents and I made the pilgrimige to see Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie as it traveled around the country, one theater at a time. We stood in line for hours for tickets and fortune smiled down on us, as we picked up the last of the tickets and show writers Jim Mallon and Kevin Murphy were on hand to speak about their experiences with the series following the film. Years later I look back on that night with my VHS and hard-to-find DVD editions of the film as well as an actual chunk of the Deep 13 set. When Season Eight of the series popped up on the Sci-Fi Channel in 1997, I was there, VCR at the ready. Seasons Nine and Ten came and went, and the series finale, episode 1013 - Diabolik, aired during my first weekend at college in August 1999.
And now, after five years of reruns, Mike Nelson and his robot friends leave television after episode 912, The Screaming Skull, ends. I know that I'm sorry to see them go; the Sci-Fi Channel is following in former MST3K home Comedy Central's footsteps - they are cancelling the series in order to show actual bad movies. It's a shame to see this happen because I say that now more than ever we need the simple premise of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and the purity that the riffing and satire bring. Have you seen what's on prime time television lately? Reality shows, overly scripted bland sitcoms, boring dramas, celebrity interviews, and other such claptrap. One thing that MST3K never did during its television run was to stoop to focus groups or pander to the audience. The series made you think as the references shot the gamut from classical music to poetry to obscure forms of entertainment. When's the last time you saw Must See TV do that?
It seems to be inevitable that television's smartest, funniest shows all too often shoot over the heads of the lowest common denominator in favor of shows like Eat Bugs For Money or Fart Date. Somehow, thank god, Mystery Science Theater 3000 flew under the "popular person" radar for fifteen years, giving the rest of us over 170 episodes that can never be taken away, no matter how often the unwashed masses furrow their brows and say "Why won't they shut up? I can't hear the movie!"
Godspeed, crew of the Satellite of Love. You will be missed.