The last episode of Dying for Sex really got me. What a fucking show. A masterclass in balancing tone. Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate are both phenomenal.
The ending made me cry so hard When she starts hallucinating her younger self (played by that one kid actress from The Bear and The Pitt) I lost it
I know Joel did his whole Netflix and indie MST3K thing. Who owns the MST3K name now because it seems weird for Joel to not be involved or mentioned.
Should have just tagged you! Good to see these guys back, even though I’ve enjoyed nu-MST3K and Rifftrax.
i have faith that this will be really good. i definitely prefer mid-career Joel MST3K episodes to any other run of the show, but have a lot of love for all of the other hosts as well. Mike, Kevin, and Bill obviously care about this show too, and i think the commitment to keeping the budget and episode count low (with a Kickstarter asking price of $20,000 compared to the 6 to 7 figure goals of Joel's crowdfunding campaigns) and focusing on delivering consistent comedy with seasoned veterans who have continued riffing decades after their run of the show ended will only work in the show's favor. if anyone that wasn't Joel was gonna helm new episodes, i'm glad it's this team.
For sure! I really like Rifftrax and the Jonah Ray era of MST3K was alright, but it was pretty clear it wasn’t gonna be a long-lasting thing since the Kickstarters that Joel tried to run kept on coming up with less and less money. I think it was good for Joel to give up control.
agreed. i think the expectation of trying to do it all on their own every season definitely screwed them over (save for S12). i haven't watched S13 yet (even though i backed a digital bundle for it back in the day) but i know it also has its moments too. i guess it also didn't help that they tried to push for the show to continue on a new platform they built on top of Vimeo OTT, so some of the high asking prices were for development and maintenance. now that platform is mostly forgotten, with both old and new episodes doing really well on dedicated FAST channels via Tubi, Pluto, and the like, as well as YouTube (even some of the Netflix episodes have made their way over to their YT channel). RiffTrax has the benefit of longevity for their platform, and with full control at Shout, i'm sure they'll find a way to get it a sizable audience across platforms that would warrant more episodes done cheap.