And, just announced this afternoon, a live tour is coming this fall. More info and a tour schedule here.
Let the speculation begin!
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Lots of News from JoelIf you’re a backer, you already know that Joel begins filming on Season 12 today and that there will be six episodes in season 12, all the better to binge-watch, Joel explained.
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The last time we only got 6 episodes in a season thing underwent a major change…..
Will there be a photo op like last year?
That’s cool that Texas is getting some dates this time. Would have liked another Phoenix date, but it’s just as well, I’ve spread myself a bit thin anyway. Enjoy, Texas!
You think the guy who announced a “pledge drive” without saying what the money raised is for is going to pass up the opportunity to offer photo ops for $200 a pop? (That was the price last tour, I think.)
This sounds like a lot of spin built around Netflix only ordering six episodes. I don’t get the point of trying to make them more “bingeable” if there’s only six, but. Also the Kickstarter is odd, I’m trying to imagine Stranger Things running a pledge drive.
Just six episodes? That’s a bummer. But still, the point is more Jonah episodes.
Six episodes sounds like a cancellation order……I really hope I’m wrong.
As much as I love the new MST3K, this is going to suck that after the great ending bit on the Sci-Fi last episode, they might hastily be shoveled off again without a good closure because Netflix thinks it’s hot sh*t and forgets it used to be a crappy mail order service that took 2 weeks for one stinkin’ DVD. If this is another final season I hope they do another bang and not a whimper open ended bit, as cool as the CC one was with the DR.F goodbye.
Maybe if it is so long Netflix they need to just kickstart every time and distribute on the website and say enough of all networks in general.
I get the idea from Joel’s Kickstarter messages that this was their idea, not something Netflix put on them. See https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mst3k/bringbackmst3k/posts/2204734.
That actually makes sense, thanks Lisa. Yeah shorter would make it more of a feedback capable show. OK I can breath now.
Joel hasn’t aged hardly a day, good god. Though I love the belt joke.
I’m disappointed they’re not doing another Kickstarter to get more episodes made. I donated quite a lot to the first one and really feel like I got my money’s worth.
If Netflix agreed to produce 6 more episodes, I would still want to donate again just to make the next season as long as possible.
I hope so too, but–touching on Joel’s “binge” comment (Joel, we love ya, and we know this Netflix stuff is new to you, but please, for the sake of human dignity, knock off the “Get ready to binge the world of streaming TV, fellow young people!” stuff, my forehead is bruised from too much facepalming…), Netflix has lately been trying to split up series, just because they think their viewers gorge their fat hamster-cheeked faces on whole seasons in ravenous, bulimic, bone-flinging orgies of belching gluttony:
Since viewers pound tables with their forks and ale steins and chant “Moremoremore!” for the new seasons they Ludovico Treated within hours, and fling apples at the servants who aren’t bringing them their new heaping trays of next-seasons fast enough, short limited made-for-Netflix series now often air only half the episodes, and then premiere the second half six months later (as fans now expect), as “Season 2”.
(Netflix’s “The Toys That Made Us” documentary has a theme song that begins “It’s an eight-part documentary series…”, and yet four episodes aired per “season”.)
If he means six and six is twelve, and there’ll be another six for S13, we can hope, but, alternatively, if he’s only doing six per season, like the few we got for S7, that also might hopefully help some of the comic “fatigue” of grinding out all twelve at once that may have ultimately hurt the riffing for At the Earth’s Core and Christmas That Almost Wasn’t near the end.
Deathstalker is sure an odd choice. Quite a bit of nudity and it’s quite rape-y. Dumb, of course. Incompetent, shouldn’t surprise anyone. But just a touch more vulgar than their usual fair. Guessing they’re going to edit a lot of it.
Funny. If a Mike-related venture had re-done Deathstalker, a certain poster here would be foaming at the mouth with rage. But I guess that, as usual, Joel gets a mulligan.
Netflix made it normal to refer to what is actually half a season to a full one. So much for my hopeful view that the new crew would get better the more they worked together.
Nice that they’ll be at the Keswick again. I think this time I’ll correct two mistakes from last time: get tickets for both shows, and get there early enough to find a closer parking space.
They are not getting cancelled. This is just an easier way to produce the show. No shades of season 7, no changes to the show. Pledge drive is purely for those who want more swag. Netflix is paying for the new season, not fans with another Kickstarter. And I really hope they record the live shows, can’t wait to see Joel back with the bots!
Only because Joel hadn’t done it ALREADY (or other similarly public-domained entries) on the series before charging us tour bucks for it–
And like Titanic, there’s no guarantee any of the tour movies will end up on the Netflix season, so if he promises his customers muppety monsters, he must see something in it…More to the point, that’s when you pay more attention to how funny the show is on stage, rather than how culty the audience is in the seats.
As for the Canadian suburban-horror of The Brain, I can only assume he’s referring to https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094794/ , so I’ll leave it for other VHS-hunters to comment on that one.
Or, for those who read further down the Kickstarter page:
But yeah, for those of you worried because we’re “only” making six new episodes, I promise, there’s nothing to panic about, so repeat to yourself: “I should really just relax.” Shorter seasons don’t mean we’re going to make fewer episodes, they just mean we’re going to make fewer at a time
…That sounds like Netflix-style Mini-Ribs Seasons to me.
It’s probably for the best- they won’t have to juggle so many storylines (so we don’t end up with a 20 minute final segment to tie everything up) and they can pick out their guest stars more carefully. A quicker turnover rate will be nice too- our cowtown puppet show has moved to the big city and there’s a lot to take care of now.
Not changing content but playing with format to cater to binge watching?
That sounds like the only thing that could be changed then: length of episodes. Joel said movies and not shorts, so I will postulate that we will have 6 new episodes…but they will be 3 movies split in half ala The MST Hour.
Joel himself said it was tough to do 14 FULL LENGTH episodes during Season 11 in the first update on season 12. So in order to rejigger the show for Netflix bingers, you do three movies, split them into 6 45-minute to an hour servings, and you don’t compromise content.
Ivan said in the comments that his understanding is the episodes will still be feature length.
Ivan did say “to the best of my knowledge, they are still feature-length — but since we’re not on television, the exact episode length may vary slightly from episode to episode. If I hear otherwise from Joel, though, I’m sure he’ll let everyone know”
“Best of my knowledge” isn’t definite, so until Joel says that each new episode will contain a feature length film, I’ll remain apprehensive. But I’ll gladly be wrong on this also.
If I had money, I’d bet you that Season 12 will be 90-ish minute episodes again.
And also if I had money, I’d love to see that Halloween performance of “The Brain” in Nashville!
Notice the tour wraps up the week before Thanksgiving! Hmm, perhaps we’ll get a Turkey Day premiere after all!
Based on what Joel’s been saying on the Kickstarter, it sounds like the idea is to do six-episode seasons, but have less of a break between seasons, rather than doing big fat seasons with long breaks between them.
Six episodes at full 90-minute length comes to 540 minutes – which is around the ballpark number Joel was talking about when talking about other binge-friendly Netflix series. So I don’t think there’s any need to worry unduly about episode length at this point.
That’s what I’m thinking. Thanksgiving premiere of all 6 episodes.
Most likely, Joel has inked a multi-year option with Netflix. If Netflix truly understands the show and its fanbase, then it makes a lot of sense to put out a “binge-able” amount of episodes right around Thanksgiving so that instead of fans streaming 6 repeats on Turkey Day, we can stream all 6 NEW episodes on Turkey Day instead! Then Joel still has plenty of time to make extra host segments, etc., then get ready to do another 6 episodes in the new year!
If I had to guess, this is how they’ll do things from now on: Film 6 episodes every summer, tour as a group in the fall, then release the new season in time for Turkey Day. That still gives several months off each year for the cast members to do their own comedy tours/other projects. If enough people stream the show on Thanksgiving, Netflix will be glad to continue that pattern for years… maybe even decades!
This could be the start of a new “golden era” for MST3K!
God help me for quoting you. (Remembers sign of the cross, Spectacles, Testicles, Wallet and Watch)
Ok guys, little confession, I binged not the films but the host segments out of fear of spoilers. So then I could go back, take my time with the theater portion. That and I had a feeling they were going to pull a big how-de-do plotline such as they did. Wasn’t terrible in the end as but I just wanted that aside to enjoy the films.
That was such a stupid idea as I would be lost in the segments that had reference to the films, and when I finally watched episodes in completion, some jokes lost impact.
This 6 parter thing might not such a bad idea, just hope they don’t call it a whole season and call it Season 12 Part 1. A boatload of seasons with 6 episodes leaves the aftertaste of vanilla pudding and apple cider vinegar. Besides, everything from The Walking Dead to Doctor friggin’ WHO does it.
*cough* Sidehackers* *cough* I’m sure they are going to edit it.
No please, The Mystery Science Theater Hour and splitting of movies was so jarring. Only good thing was Mike’s Jack Perkins. I was so overjoyed when they added all the host bits to the Shout collection.
I still remember wondering who this apparent registered sex offender was that they hired. And how I felt confused whether or not he was trying to be funny or that he was creepy. Also the style of the program was pure hilarity. The piano piece, the monologues, the Dr. F and Frank artsy-fartsy silhouettes. I was asking myself “Is this a joke or are they really becoming pretentious?”
“Yeah listen you never had an EricJ. I want you to stop this foolishness about an EricJ.”
Yes I remember Sidehackers. The difference is that’s just one scene. Deathstalker is twisted, 80’s “male power fantasy” beginning to end.
Well I believe the most brutal stuff will get the axe, and I’m sure the guys can have a field day tearing the misogynistic content apart. They’re supportive of feminism and I don’t see them catcalling throughout the film. Whatever creeps through will be a “the brooding male type” bashing party on their behalf.
With regards to the new six episode season, it sounds like Joel is adjusting to the 21st century. Since Netflix dumps a season in our laps all at once, doing “only six” means getting new episodes to the fans quicker. It doesn’t necessarily mean we are only getting six new episodes every year from here on out. We could very well see new episodes twice a year, most likely beginning in spring of 2019 … at least, that’s what I hope happens.
And thanks to Colossus Prime for pointing out what kind of movie “Deathstalker” is. I was thinking of going to one of the live shows with the family, but now I’ll have to rethink that plan.
While I do agree with Hmm! These Are Good Hot Dogs! in that they will definitely cut a lot of it out, there is so much of it that they can’t possibly cut out enough to make it truly family friendly without making it maybe only an hour long. The opening scene is Deathstalker stopping a group of men from raping a woman, he’s about to just let her go and then changes his mind deciding to have her himself, and she’s kinda cool with that. Sure he gets interupted, but still. It’s by far the grossest of the Deathstalker movies.
Someone else has to have seen this and can verify if I’m overreacting or misremembering how bad it is. I mean, I’m sure Joel will make it as family friendly as possible.
Heaven help me, I TRIED not to binge–Like when I get a new Shout DVD box, and don’t want to play with it like a Christmas toy, pack it away three days later and forget about it. I used the DVD strategy of only watching one “quarter” at a time, using the host-segs as break, until….the Beast of Hollow Mountain came along.
Forget rationing, I had to go through the whole episode to find out at what point something would actually happen, and at that point, the diet was off.
Again, even though Hulu and Amazon occasionally dip into the “ancient days” of premiering a new series episode every week, and stringing out a new generation of fans who can’t even wait THAT long anymore, Netflix still stubbornly insists its audiences Binge Everything And Must Binge Everything. (Which is why Joel is so convinced we do, and pastes on pointless “Season Arcs”.)
Doing six-and-six is as far as Netflix will, or even psychologically can, allow themselves to string some episodes now and some later. Let’s face it, Reed Hastings is a looney, and he’s destroyed the old disk service.
Yes, if one is going to have an obsessive personal-comedy-issue bee in one’s bonnet about every single thing that A&E airs at the time, and dependence on private running jokes from another series, it does help to know whether the rest of the audience does too. ;)
Mike imitating whatever he hated about Jack Perkins in 1991 is…sort of satirical in small doses, but anything past that, and it just starts turning into one long, puzzling, never-ending Chris Elliott vanity meta-routine. And from the SNL season at that, never mind the David Letterman ones or “Cabin Boy”.
(And now that we have, for all purposes, Joel’s verification that it’s a Netflix six-and-six of regular episodes, can we please pass over Ben’s guesses as just that, before the thread goes too far off the rails?)
How can one go off the rails when speculation was encouraged for this thread? And as long as there’s speculation, why not go whole hog and indulge in semi-reckless speculation? It’s fun!
Fine, enough about the new partial season. But that reminds me, how about this: let’s speculate on what percentage of the cast is actually physically going to go on the tour this time around.
Just heard of the live tour in the Orlando Sentinel.
Sorry to hear it is this fall as I was hoping to see them at Comic-con San Diego again this year.
Also sorry that there are only six movies in Season 12.
Come on Netflix, pony up.
lol, Netflix has ponied up, don’t worry. They’re just not going to shoot 14 episodes in a row this time, only 6. Like the old days, they’d do an episode a week for six weeks, then take a week off. Now instead it’ll be a few months off. It should end up being a pretty good pattern.
Re: the short season, I’m willing to trust Joel’s judgment on this.
Yeah, I’ve been wondering about this choice myself. My wife & I dug into Deathstalker a few years ago for a booze-n-bad movie night & were really put off by how much rape there was in it. Going off of the tone of Deathstalker & the Warriors from Hell, we expected it to be meat-headed & misogynistic, but there was a lot of really off-putting sexual assault stuff in it. And, as you said, it’s not just the bad guys in the movie; Deathstalker himself is a disgusting creep, too, and not in the “comical arrogant doofus” way he was in Warriors from Hell. The whole movie is pretty gross & not a fun time. It’s gonna need A LOT of editing to make it family-friendly, and I’m wondering how long the final version will be. I’d assume a little under an hour, so they might make up for it with longer host segments or (wishful thinking) a short.
The first Deathstalker movie is nasty, the second one is a little better, by the time we reach Deathstalker III we’re grateful for Mark Alan Nelson and Thom Christopher.
I never “got” the hatred for D in D&TWFH. He was a pretty typical example of the “fantasy movie hero who is like this laid back surfer dude, dude” trope that was not uncommon for a while. It’s like the Brains watched the first two movies & took out their feelings on Deathstalker III: The Dudebro, who wasn’t even the same actor. Didn’t spoil the episode, but annoying nevertheless.
I’ll be honest, I’m pretty disappointed with the choice of Deathstalker. The show’s creators, including Joel, had always seemed to regret picking Sidehackers without realizing what was in it. I’m surprised they’d knowingly go ahead with Deathstalker. I admit I’ve never seen it, but from the descriptions I’ve read, it sounds pretty bad.
They’re gonna need a lot of umbrellas, I’ll tell you that.
I’ll second that theory, as that sure does sound a lot like You-Know-Who by the already cranky Season 7. (Leaving aside the usual Kevin ritual of “Fantasy movie = Renfest blame”, that they also managed to do in S10. And Film Crew. And Rifftrax.)
There’s a comparative nastiness to the riffing in D&TWFH, although that one was likely the only scapegoat that could air on the cable channel complete. If Joel thinks he can get away with the less cable-ready entries in the series for the live tours, we wish him godspeed.
I never said I disliked it, in fact, it was so bizarre and surreal it made it the more intriguing and amusing. I knew who Jack Perkins was, just didn’t put two and two together. If I had, it would have spoiled it for me. Since it was being syndicated for my local channel, I thought maybe they threw together their own little production for the local talent as something to do when he wasn’t out live from the local fair rambling about the cuisine with chili sauce on his tie.
And do you and Mike have a former love triangle and she also stole your saxophone? What gives man????
He’s the three most disliked people on here.
I don’t watch more than one MST episode in one day, so this is just fine: I can watch a half season in about a week. And if this schedule means less time between new episodes, all the better.
Can’t wait for the episode list!
Why not just call it the first half of season twelve? Netflix is so strange.
We’ll call this “Season 12” and what follows “Season 12.5”.
So — not to get too far off track, but since they are doing shows in Orlando (finally a place my wife and I can go see a show, unlike any of the CT tour dates) we were definitely interested in going. But “Deathstalker” doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, although it’s the type of film in general I prefer. “The Brain” sounds… too 80’s (and Canadian). I’m no prude, and there are no kids involved, but my wife and I do prefer things to be light-hearted (and “Sidehackers” wasn’t one of our pleasures even with the edits).
Anyone have an idea on what they would do? Should we take a chance on The Brain (playing earlier for us — a *bit* of advantage for us old people)? Offhand it doesn’t seem like it would be a “classic” but who knows?