Mystery Science Theater 3000

It’s his first new episode as host in 30 years.

Season 13 of ‘MST3K’ is coming soon.

Joel Hodgson wants to #MakeMoreMST3K.

Mystery Science Theater is returning for a unique new episode.

The TV industry’s gone revival-crazy, and we’ve got twenty (!) ranked examples of the last decade or so to prove it.

Even as Rotten Tomatoes continues to highlight divisions between audiences and critics, some of the best TV nonetheless gets its due. A full seventy-nine series managed to keep a “Certified Fresh” rating in 2017, and just ten took home the coveted perfect score. Did your favorite make the list?

Alright, a gold friggin’ star to the person who thought of this one. With the new season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 hitting Netflix today, most of the conversation has been dominated by lifelong fans of the show  —  fans like myself  —  who are some combination of excited and apprehensive about the return of their favorite television series. But what about the next generation of MST3K fans? How does Netflix introduce them to their service? Why, by riffing on another Netflix property that everyone already knows and loves, of course!

You know Mystery Science Theater 3000 from ten seasons on Comedy Central and the Sci-Fi Channel. (They used to spell their name right.) But did you know that MST3K started on a local station in Minnesota named KTMA? The original version of the show ran for 21 episodes before KTMA filed for bankruptcy and the series was sold to the Comedy Channel, which later became Comedy Central. That’s just one of the facts packed into the latest episode of the ScreenCrush series You Think You Know TV?

It’s been almost 20 years since Mystery Science Theater 3000 was cancelled by the Sci-Fi Channel (this was back in the days when that station knew how to spell its own name). And bear in mind, this is after the show had already been cancelled once before, on Comedy Central, and its lone big-screen outting flopped in theaters. Just about any other series with that track record would be long dead and buried in 2017, but the legend of MST3K has grown over the years, aided in part by the ongoing popularity of its alumni, who’ve formed splinter groups like RiffTrax and Cinematic Titanic. Now, after a massively successful Kickstarter campaign, series creator Joel Hodgson is bringing MST3K back with an all-new cast on Netflix.

It was back in July that the news of an impending return from everyone’s favorite B-movie mockery program Mystery Science Theater 3000 first broke. Fans of Manos: the Hands of Fate and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians were atwitter with excitement for a revival of the long-running program last seen in 1999, breathlessly speculating on which schlock gems would get roasted this time around. And while the fodder for the upcoming eleventh season has yet to be named, Netflix has finally announced a release date and included a new press photo of the whole wisecracking robotic gang.