So with the new season just weeks away — so close we can almost touch it — what plans do you have for the premier of MST3K Season 11? Party like it’s 1999 with a few hundred of your closest MISTIE friends? A quiet viewing with family? Just you, locked up by yourself, shades drawn, a case of Cheetos and a cooler full of beer within arms reach of the couch?
And while we are on the topic, will you binge on the whole season, or, like an exquisite meal, savor it slowly, letting each cheesy-good episode melt in your cranium, then cleansing your mental palate before moving on to the next one some hours/days/weeks later?
Me, I plan to invite a few of the “right people” over for pizza, hot wings, beer, and Minnesota Cheese, to join me and my four boys for the premier. Sure, I’ll go crazy and watch the 1st two episodes, but from there it will be weekly until the season is done.
I’ll be in my easy chair with several boxes of wine, taking frantic notes.
And I’ll probably watch two or three, but then I’ll probably do only one or two a weekend.
You?
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I began my MSTie fandom late in the game, late 90s, so every new DVD I get is essentially a new episode for me. I’ll treat the Season 11 eps the same way, watching it once for completion-ist sake, but then binge watching the episode over and over to try and squeeze out all the nuances. Nearly impossible, even after multiple viewings. There are episodes I think I know by rote, but I’ll give them a watch every now and then and still find a riff I hadn’t understood or didn’t catch the first thousand times previously. Parsing the rest of the eps over a few weeks sounds like a good plan, even if they’ll be available immediately.
As for the premiere: by myself, pizza and wings sound pretty good. I’ve tried to introduce several people to the show, but have had a 0% success rate. Thank golly for tha Intartubes!
I’ll be alone, clearing my mind hopefully of all preconceptions and just take it in, and realize that it might take a few episodes to hit their stride.
It’s so amazing that this moment in FINALLY happening, after years of chat……..
The Mads are in town for two show and the premier all in the same week. I’m gonna lose my beautiful mind.
Serious question (not trolling) Is there anyone who doesn’t plan to watch at all?
I’ll probably watch the premiere by myself, taking it with no preconceptions whatsoever. After that, I’ll probably space out the subsequent episodes once a week or two.
I’ll be watching it in a car in a box with a fox in a house with a mouse. So, admittedly I’m going to be a bit distracted and likely unable to give a fair assessment of the show.
I don’t have Netflix so I’ll have to wait till they come out on DVD. :-(
I admit I’m filled with trepidation. Rarely do great venues have as successful a second life as the first (Colombo, Perry Mason, etc.). I’m going to do my best to watch this as a new series and try not to compare it to the first.
That’s the plan anyway.
If I had it my way, I would start off with the Blu-ray. But I don’t want to wait that long. Since the digital copies for the backers won’t come out until about the same time as the Netflix premier, and watching the show on Netflix helps support it for another season, I guess I’ll be watching it there even tho my internet isn’t really good enough for Netflix. I suppose its better than waiting four hours to download a single episode.
I’ll likely be watching it by myself, episode-after-episode for 3-4 days before really discussing anything about it. I don’t expect to be “used” to new things until the final episode anyway.
If I had all of the time in the world I would binge watch as many classic episodes as I could the week before, and end that with Diabolik before starting into the new season.
My regular pace, before and after I’d seen all of the original episodes, was “one episode a week, usually on Saturday evenings”; I suppose myself to have enough other things to do that spending an hour and a half watching TV seems an indulgence (although maybe that just amounts to “a short attention span.”) I’m also aware at the moment that I’m going on a long vacation trip in May, and might not have the time during it to watch even the “downloadable via Kickstarter contribution” episodes… To be honest, though, I have my own apprehensions. In the years since the original show ended, I’ve found “doesn’t everyone agree this recent genre work has no redeeming merits?” comments are ones I wind up disagreeing with often enough to not think funny. It’s been the unfortunate reason I’ve lacked courage to watch anything from Rifftrax or Cinematic Titanic, and all I really did differently as the revival approached was hope…
It’s just a show, so I should really just relax.
To be completely honest, I don’t know yet. I dropped Netflix a while back because it seemed to be stuffed to the gills with garbage I had no interest in yet stubbornly refused to stream the movies I did want to watch. Do I re-enroll just to watch the reboot? Wait until the episodes come out on disc? Continue to live in the MST3K past? Keep buying Rifftrax shows? I suppose re-enrolling in Netflix would be a financial signal of support for the show, but I’m already a Kickstarter backer so my mind rests easy there.
Yep, Jay, it’s just a show so I should really just relax.
I will probably watch the first 2 episodes when they premiere on Netflix with my wife. After that, I will watch one a day depending on how much leisure time I get. I should be able to finish the season within three weeks, and then follow it up with rewatches of my favorite episodes.
Have we heard if the films will be editted to fit a 90 minutes runtime, or will the episodes be longer than usual because Netflix allows irregular runtime?
I’m going to watch it on an immense screen at the Corn Palace while HOOKED ON A FEELING is sung by a choir of castrati.
As I remarked in the entry that announced the premiere date, binging isn’t for me. I’ll probably go with watching one a week on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Now that I’ve gotten around to figuring out how to use the Roku device we got for Christmas, I can watch it on the TV. I’ll likely have my dad as viewing companion and will stick with popcorn and maybe ice cream for munchies.
Get some hamburger sammiches with french fries garnish, watch the movie,
and then beat Monty to Messina.
I will watch the first episode and then proceed based on that:
If it looks like a worthy successor, I’ll space them out to one per week to savor them.
If it was disappointing, I’ll watch a few more over the next few days to see if it improves or if my initial reaction was just a knee-jerk “wishing for the old casts” emotional response.
Either way, like the general in Melting Man, I’ll have plenty of beer and turkey legs on hand.
I’ll probably watch the first 1-2 episodes on April 14th with my wife (converted MSTie), and my daughter and her husband (BIG MSTies), and make a sort of party out of it. After that, it will probably be 1-2 per weekend until I’ve seen them all (or given up, if they haven’t eventually reached the old standards). I’m excited about this, but also a little apprehensive. I love Felicia, and Josh is growing on me, but Patton rubs me the wrong way for some reason I can’t put my finger on. I don’t know anything about the other guys. I wish Joel and everyone involved great success on this!
And I’m also excited for RT’s Samurai Cop at the theaters on April 13th – it will be a HUGE MST weekend!
I’m gonna chow down on some vintage hamdingers while singing clowns in the sky.
I might be watching them one a day, as I won’t have time for any more than that. If I miss one day and I have time I’ll watch two in a row. This isn’t exactly a normal, one hour TV show you would find on Netflix. Binge-watching MST3K is the equivalent of the Turkey Day marathon minus the commercials.
I fully plan to binge watch the entire season – twice! Then I will add them to my daily rotation of old MST3K, Film Crew, Cinematic Titanic, and Rifftrax. Unfortunately, I will be watching alone as none of my close and nearby friends have any interest in the show.
The first episode of season 11 has already been screened for Kickstarter backers. Because of the NDAs they had to sign, no details have been released, but the response has been universally positive – even from the skeptics. I have seen the title list of the 14 episodes (which I won’t reveal). I have to say, I am very impressed with the selection; the first episode being one of my favorite “bad” movies.
Really looking forward to the return of MST3K, and I am ignoring the naysayers and complainers with a passion.
My wife and I usually watch Netflix seasons one per night. This’ll likely be no exception.
I’m in a tough spot for it, because my kid is on spring break, but my wife works late. I want the first viewing to be with all of us, though, so I’m kind of hoping they get the premiere out a day early for backers. The whole issue of food and drink is one I’ll have to figure out once I have a forecast, though-don’t want to make chili on a warm day or anything like that.
Either find someone I know who can let me use their account briefly, wait for a free preview weekend of Netflix and bing, watch an episode here and there at a friend’s house, or just wait for the disc releases.
I don’t have Netflix, but there will probably be alternate ways to view it.
Netflix offers a free month of service. Sign up on the 14th, watch them all and then cancel before they charge your card.
How vintage? :sick:
There’s Rifftrax Live on Thursday, the new MST3K episodes drop on Friday, then on Saturday (and Friday), the Mads are Back are in Omaha. I’m going to have a three-day riff-fest.
I expect I’ll probably watch them one a night, for pretty close to two weeks straight (barring the occasional weekend if there’s somebody good playing in town.) MST3K is our default “chill out” program, any my favorite way to decompress after a long day at work. While I will occasionally binge watch on Turkey Day or if I’m stuck at home feeling sick, for the most part, MST3K is too precious a commodity to blow through all at once.
We’ve watched every episode so many times (interspersed with various Rifftrax, Film Crew, and Cinematic Titanic DVDs) that I usually have to spend several minutes staring at the DVD case and/or consulting the episode guide to determine what experiment we haven’t seen recently. Having 14 brand new episodes to watch is going to be bliss, and I plan on relishing the experience as much as possible.
I’ll spread out the viewing in the evenings after work, on the couch with my husband, with a big bottle of Peach Snapple Iced-Tea and a hearty bowl of Chickin-in-a-Biscuit snack crackers (always been my favorites). On the weekend I’ll probably do a couple throughout the day, between loads of laundry.
Since sending in the question (thanks, Sampo!) and my party plans, I realized that the new episodes are being released two days before the end of Lent.
I got me some serious soul-searching to do. :-?
At our church’s Saturday night vigil, Lenten fasts are often broken mid-service with passing of the chocolate and other foods given up for Lent. Maybe you can sneak a peek at Netflix in middle?
So a vineyard is releasing a fine wine almost 20 years since it stopped, and people think I’m going to drink the whole bottle in a setting?
No way, one a night, if not one a week. We may have awhile until we see more of this.
Ideally, I would watch one episode each week over the course of 14 weeks to recreate the feeling of a televised season of MST3K. Realistically, I’ll end up watching an episode each day.
What I would like to do is watch an episode twice a day. The first watch would be for watching it in the moment, for the spontaneous laughter. The second watch would be for savoring that episode a little more carefully.
As for how I’m actually going to watch the episodes, I’ll just be relaxing on a couch and enjoying some snacks. I’ll want to prepare something different for each evening. Maybe I’ll have some chips and dip one night, pick up a pizza another night, make some sandwiches yet another night, and so on. Nothing fancy, just comfort food.
It’s not just attention-span that I rarely ever watch ANYTHING in a complete sitting. (Unless it’s one of those stupid 24-hour digital rentals, because it’s winter and I can’t get out to the library or Redbox. If there’s one reason to hate Digital…)
A single guy’s home-theater is his castle, and when I sit down as Lord of the Remotes in the evening, I generally tend to smorgasbord two or three things, and keep a “serial” of half-hour chapters to string me out over a series of nights. That’s how they used to do “Roots” in your parents’ day, you know, kids, back before you could blast all of Westworld in two or three kamikaze marathon sessions. ;)
It also clears the palate to do one half-hour of movie, one classic rerun, one vintage cartoon or anime, etc., with popcorn and Coke Zero nearby…Sort of the same way that short subjects used to work, in old 30’s theaters.
With MST3K, watching serial half hours can actually be better, since I’m taking the riffing as a half-hour sitcom (much like the MST3K Hour, only without Mike’s Jack Perkins/A&E issues)–And more to the point, sitting all the way through Monster-a-Go-Go or Wild World of Batwoman means sitting ALL THE WAY through Monster-a-Go-Go or Wild World of Batwoman. Think about it carefully.
Aw c’mon, how about some legally allowable unhelpful-hints, like Criterion does with their New Year’s doodle cartoons?
Oh, they’re not the ones “refusing” to show the movies:
The studios have been paranoid of Netflix (yes, even the disk-by-mail version that crushed Blockbuster) for the last ten years, and now that Digital-locker-purchase movies aren’t taking off as the wildfire that studios wishfully convinced themselves it was going to be, guess who got socked with the blame. Amazon Prime, too, but they couldn’t make the exclusive studio deals with Disney/Dreamworks that Netflix could, so they were left even more out in the cold when the studios decided to cut their competition for streaming dollars and, um, “gag the subscription gaggle”, to put it presidentially.
Even so–as Amazon, Hulu, Netflix and even the once premium-cable movie channels like Starz and AMC brag about their “new original programming” as the be-all of their networks, to fill in the void–studios don’t want to appear to be throwing the subscription services out into the snow with their babies.
So, every month, along with a few straggling often re-licensed movies, we see Netlix and Amazon get one package of movies every month: This month, Netflix gets all four Jurassic Park movies, last month they got all four Jaws sequels, while Amazon got the run of 007 movies.
Well, that’s generous, isn’t it? Um, maybe, except that it also shows HOW studios think of movies these days: After the disastrous Quest For Franchises last summer, studios now literally only think of movies as brand names: You don’t JUST want to watch Jaws 1, Back to the Future 1 and Raiders of the Lost Ark because they’re your favorites and ignore the crap sequels, you’re such a loyal consumer of Universal and Paramount, you want to buy the whole bundle on digital, at a specially priced package–Ask for it by name!
Excuse my wander off the path, but there are some DEEP ROOTED problems at the studios for the moment, and theatrical movies, TV, Netflix/Amazon and the home-video Blu-vs.-Digital “war” aren’t going to get any better until one of the two starts getting some real-world therapy.
That would be me. Don’t have Netfix, don’t plan to get it. Besides that, I have high expectations that this will veer sharply into political commentary, and while I’m all for making fun of politics/politicians, I strongly suspect that this will get nasty (if current trends are any indication). I just don’t need yet another source of orange man and hitler jokes, thanks very much – I want to ESCAPE the rhetoric.
I truly hope I’m proven wrong.
Ever since around season five my wife and I have enjoyed our MST3Ks over a meal and some alcohol, getting pleasantly drunk (everything is SO much funnier when you are mildly inebriated). This continued after our daughter left home to start her own family, and then after MST3K ended we did it with The Film Club, then Rifftrax and Cinema Titanic, and now (since RT has fairly gone sour IMHO) we do it on the reruns.
So I’m pretty positive we will do the same: sit down with some great food (always something special), good bubbly (a fine Prosecco) and laugh our asses off, once a week (we only drink once a week). So it will be three or four months before we see them all, and that’s just fine.
(And I hope #37 — Greg, is it? — you are wrong. Like you I think things have gotten WAY too nasty, and I don’t watch stuff like this to be reminded of politics or indeed anything truly current. If it goes that way we’ll turn it off and write the money I spent on the Kickstarter as lost — I may send an angry missive off to Joel to boot, as he has promised this won’t be the case).
Yes, it’s Greg – thanks! Having said what I posted, I do expect that I’ll catch them in some other form in the future, I just won’t be able to be “in” on the premier and such. I hope it’s the funniest thing Netflix has ever shown!
Happy to hear Joel has addressed this – when I met him after a CT show, I told him that his humor made life worth living, and I stand by that statement!
Big MST3K fan since the 80s. No Netflix but I’m used to be behind on the cool stuff. ( just started Big Bang Theory a month ago. :p ) I’ll buy the blu ray set and watch when I’m done with 10. I just started 5. :p
I’ll be watching the livestream premiere online with some (or most) of the other Kickstarter backers who pledged at a level high enough to get access. According to the latest info, Ivan and the team are trying to get permission to hold that livestream a week before the Netflix release, but it will definitely be before April 14th.
As for the rest of the season, I pledged enough to get the digital downloads of all episodes, so I’m in the air about signing up for Netflix just to show support for the show. We’ll see as the drop date comes closer. I’ll probably watch one a day.
My normal MST3K viewing (sometimes including other riffing shows) is usually on weekends, roughly 2 episodes per weekend, on the computer (DVD when watching from DVDs) with headphones and “theater snacks” – mostly either Goobers or Puffcorn (fake popcorn), with most of the lights off to simulate the movie theater experience.
The premier I’ll watch similarly. Since FINALLY getting a good ol’ 21st century flat screen TV with Christmas money, I’ve been watching my Netflix more often, through my FINALLY updating to X1, on the TV instead of on the computer (even though I liked watching Netflix stuff that way). I will be going back to the computer for watching the new MST3Ks, since it’ll be more like my usual MST3K viewing, usually on YouTube.
I plan on watching the new shows once (maybe sometimes twice) a week, on the weekend, so as not to use it all up too quickly. I’m thinking of pairing up my MST3K watching each week: a new episode, then an old MST3K with a similar style of movie, spread throughout each weekend like my usual viewing. Also, leading up to the debut, I plan to watch some of the “storyline” episodes (probably Crawling Eye, Mitchell host segments, At least the early part of Brain That Wouldn’t Die, maybe Laserblast, then Diabolique).
Since I don’t do Netflix, I won’t be seeing it at all until they’re available on DVD. Once that happens, I will watch as I normally do… quietly enjoying each episode right before bedtime (but spread out over two evenings). Really a great way to unwind at the end of the day before going to bed.
Anyone one know when it will be available on Blu-Ray/DVD?
Per Ivan Askwith in the comments of the latest Kickstarter update: “We’re doing our best to get everything finished as fast as we can, and we’re hoping to get everything to backers way BEFORE we actually promised during the campaign — we expect the DVDs and Blu-Ray to be ready sometime in May or June, which is probably a YEAR before they’ll be available for sale.”
To be absolutely clear, that May or June means for backers who pledged for the DVDs and Blu-Ray, or backers who have purchased them as an add-on.
I’ll make a special dinner. Probably nothing too fancy. Maybe an old recipe. A stew. What’s in it? Chicken, corn, chili, green pepper…[sigh]…onions….
Thanks. Looks like I’ve got a long wait ahead of me.
what, no waffles with mexican stoplight candy sprinkles? :0 no ribs with a “bold!” bbq sauce? ;) (i do have a waffle maker though, and i’d planned on catching some ribs at the groc while they’re on sale the next coupla days, so i’m not ruling out the possibilities…)
will probably be eating a number of different things over the course of feasting on the new epis… for example one of my faves i’m having today, steak soft tacos… lightly marinate steaks with light-sodium soy sauce; pan-sear ’em then slice them up… microwave shredded cheese on a soft tortilla for about a min, then put on some of the steak… dashes of tabasco, bit of sourcream, onion, lettuce… lots of tasty topping options. good eats! and quick eats are some of the best eats!
remember the old “jerry lewis labor-day bingewatch-athons?” ever do a “lotr” or “star wars trilogy bingewatch-kathon?” or as already posited, the “mst3k turkey-day bingewatcha-kathons?” no, they didn’t call them that, now, did they! just because ‘tha nets’ decided to make up a new word for it, doesn’t mean they invented a new idea; nor does that make it any better or worse than before. as cheap trick once said, “some people do and some people don’t… some people will, and say they won’t.”
it won’t stop me from watching them “as quick as can be,” but nor will i “spoil the meal” by overwatching/overdoing it… watch one or two, and make sure i’ve absorbed them appro’ before moving on to the rest too quickly. at least it won’t be in nearly so rough a form as the ktma eps – though nostaligia gives ’em a soft spot in my heart. i’d been rewatching those a lot lately, in prep for s11…
Wait, what? They’re doing more episodes of MST3K?
I can’t help but binge watch stuff so I’ll probably watch them as quickly as I can. I doubt I’ll get through all of them that first weekend but by the end of that next week, I will probably have watched them all. I became a fan in ’93 when I was in 10th grade. I saw one of the Cinematic Titanic live shows when they were in Austin and I’ve been to every Rifftrax show and I was a backer for the MST kickstarter. Needless to say I’m very excited about the new eps and am really curious how they are going to explain the new characters and they how they got back up on the SOL. I’m sure it’ll be a good enough explanation and then I should really just relax – ha!