MST3K Episodes 101 - 104 now on PBS!

Cafe Society
1

I just saw the listing for the local PBS station that episodes 101 through 104 of Mystery Science Theater 3000 will be shown starting March 21st.

The episodes are

[ul]
[LIST]3/21: 101 - Gunslinger
[li]3/28: 102 - Manos - the Hands of Fate[/li][li]4/4: 103 - The Unearthly[/li][li]4/11: 104 - Hercules and the Captive Women[/li][/ul]

This is for KTCA (TPT) - Twin Cities, which is appropriate since the series originated from Minnesota.

From the KTCA web site: “These four episodes serve as the prototype for what could become The Best of MST3K on PTV” Does that mean they could make this a regular series?

2

MST3K seems like a natural fit for PBS. If Joel weren’t currently trying to revive it as a crowdfunded web series, I’d think a pledge-supported PBS series would be a viable way to bring the show back. Heck, maybe they can get Kevin Murphy to host a pledge drive.

(Interesting that KTCA is renumbering the series … mercifully, none of those are first-season episodes.)

3

Yeah, you’re gonna get Mysties (think Trekies) complaining about that*!* The episode numbers for the run of Mystery Science Theater 3000 were very consistent and universally recognized. Plus because the show went thru so many important & distinctly different iterations, namely:
[ul]
[li]the original, rarely seen KTMA shows[/li][li]season one on The Comedy Channel[/li][li]the Joel years[/li][li]the Mike years[/li][li]the theatrical movie release[/li][li]the SciFi Channel years[/li][li]Cinematic Titanic[/li][li]RiffTrax etc.[/li][/ul]
Therefore the casual renumbering of them like that is not to be taken lightly! :smiley:

4

FYI there are also a lot of episodes free on YouTube now.

They seem to have disappeared from Netflix and Amazon Prime.

5

Yeah, they pulled them a few months ago. Sadly I hadn’t gotten around to watching anything but part of Gamera (which I found pretty boring, even their jokes didn’t help).

I’ll have to see what’s on youtube, hopefully they stay up and not copyright bullshit flagged.

6

This site seems to have a pretty comprehensive list (with links) of the episodes that are available streaming.

7

Is it possible PBS is trying to attract a younger audience? At a certain point the audience that makes up most of their demographic is going to start dying off.

I’m constantly amazed at the crap programming they choose to showcase during their pledge-drives. Celtic Thunder, Pink Floyd cover bands and Suze Orman.

8

If they are the popup versions, I’ll watch. Otherwise, too many of the jokes seem dated.