06 March 2007

MST3K (807)

807 - Terror from the Year 5000 - There was a seed of a good movie buried in here. When the future people respond to Bob's Phi Beta Kappa key with a plea, written in Greek, for help: that was really interesting. I can see an entirely different movie growing out of that. As well, the first glimpse of the mutant, future lady was actually effectively scary. We don't see her face. Instead, there's just this cat-like, black creature making weird noises in the shadows. Spooky. I was disappointed when they revealed it was just an ugly lady in a leotard.

I'm still not finding the riffing very laughable lately. I'm not sure if it's me or the show. I'm trying to get back on schedule before it becomes too late to catch up, which means watching an episode every day. That starts to get old rather fast and begins to feel like a second job. Still, I feel like the writing has slipped into an autopilot recently. What's with constant abuse of the "I thought you were Dale?" joke?

"When I Held Your Brain in My Arms" was the first excellent song of the Sci-Fi era. I couldn't get used to Mike lip-syncing, though. Mike's a great singer and has never shied away from belting out a tune for the show. His replacement voice was provided by Kevin Murphy, who sang the hell out of the song. He wasn't singing as a robot making fun of a movie; he was singing like a professional. Very nice. The lyrics were a lot of fun, except for one line near the end that just about derails the entire tune. Why did they feel a need to reference a worthless, late-'90s sitcom in an otherwise perfect song about brain anatomy?

Crow just keeps getting older and older. At this rate, he's going to surpass Data's head. Let's see. In the cable era, Crow was essentially born in 1989. Season 8 takes place in 2525. Add in the 11 years he spent hanging out with Mike's family and that makes Crow a spry 547 years young. My compliments to Joel's engineering skills.

"Oh, and your dog called and said to kill your family." (6/10)

film d. Robert J. Gurney Jr. (1958)
mst d. Jim Mallon (15 Mar 1997)