It has been years since the long-running series Mystery Science Theater 3000 went off the air, but the show and the millions of snarky copycats and critics it helped generate have carried on into the new millennium. The crew behind MST3K have gone on to produce similar works of epic snark, including the increasingly popular RiffTrax and Cinematic Titanic. But the first is always the best, and it appears that Mystery Science Theater 3000 could very well be primed for a reboot.
Series creator Joel Hodgson recently expressed a hope that the popular show featuring robots and human hosts making sarcastic comments about some truly bad films has not yet run its course:
I’ve talked to a bunch of fans about their lives and what ‘MST3K’ means to them. I’m overwhelmed by how people took to that show. It really affected them. I thought, if enough people still love it, maybe we can bring it back … Even avid viewers sometimes don’t realize that every major role in the show had been swapped out over time. So in my mind, the show is built to be refreshed with new people and new ideas. It’s like Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle as it applies to ‘MST3K’: If it doesn’t change, it’s not the same show. And fortunately for us, as long as there are movies, there are always going to be cheesy movies.
The new series will be web-based and start up in the spring, with new hosts and some old friends. This could all be a great deal of fun if the show manages to capture the combination of snark, charm, and friendly humor that made the original so enjoyable.
The question of course remains if Mystery Science Theater 3000 can still be interesting or topical in a film culture now populated by slightly meaner versions of those sarcastic robots. The key would be to avoid getting too nasty about the films on display, which in the original series were some of the worst movies ever committed to celluloid. But there was always an edge of fun and enjoyment in the commentary; an implicit sense that everyone was having a good time teasing about these films. Rarely was Mystery Science Theater 3000 mean-spirited, which is unfortunately the way a lot of contemporary critique has gone.
We shall have to wait and see what comes of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 reboot, including what films the guys will take on this time. But it’s an intriguing prospect, and one which I hope works out. We could use some good old fashioned snark again.
