(Dec 03, 2023, 18:39 pm)SuspiriaTrumpsItFollowsCrap Wrote: [ -> ]Nothing *but* the writing matters to MST3K; it’s about the JOKES.
I may have a controversial take here, and I don't desire to get involved in... whatever that was that was happening on pages 4-6 or so... but I think the "joke" writing for the new MST3K was fine. They aren't always going to be winners, and not every joke is for every person, I get all that. The thing that's really let me down since the return of the show has been the out-of-the-theatre jokes, the host segments and the characterizations of the Bots/Mads/Hosts. Specifically, how unbalanced, unnatural, and inorganic it's been.
The reason MST3K still hit for so many people, and why there was definitely a space for it in a world where Rifftrax and The Mads and all the fan riffers out there already have grown into the space was that MST3K created *characters* instead of just having comedians delivering movie jokes. There were situations - Tom Servo's underwear collection, Crow's nearly unwavering support for Kim Cattrall, Gypsy being motherly while also done with it all. And while I actually prefer the writing of the earlier seasons for the jokes, I like the host segments post-Joel a lot better, even into the SciFi era. They weren't just puppeteers holding puppets or the same puppeteers wearing weird costumes, they written characters with personalities and likes and dislikes.
The Netflix Seasons were... almost entirely about The Mads. Jonah (the character) is basically just
there, like someone ordered one unit of "white guy" from a bulk wholesaler and that's what showed up. And there's never even an attempt at an explanation as to where the new Servo and Crow came from, or an attempt to flesh them out, define them more. Servo, Crow, and even Jonah are just hollow ciphers to deliver the jokes. If it had kept going on for long enough, they might've eventually gotten around to it, but they were never given the room and time to grow, never given the focus, not the stars in their own show.
And then the Gizmoplex season doubled down on that by introducing MULTIPLE Servos and Crows. They could've given them different paint jobs, different designs, different names, and let them all be their own thing - and imagine the fan fun that would cause at conventions! But instead they were just like "yeah there are a bunch of them" and didn't bother to go further.
Ultimately, my problem with the new season, and why I personally am not surprised that the most recent crowdfunding failed, is that it feels like they misunderstood their own core mantra. We,
the audience, are the ones being invited to "repeat to ourselves, it's just a show, we should really just relax" - to suspend
our disbelief and accept some of the more unrealistic parts of the show's conventions. But it wasn't an open invitation for them to just... be lazy and shitty with their character writing. We were supposed to relax about the show's setting - not them.
If you think I'm wrong... tell me one thing about Servo or Crow from Seasons 11-13. Tell me a view they expressed, a like or dislike, a single through-line that was mentioned more than once. A collection, an interest, a hobby. Anything they did off-screen that didn't explicitly revolve around riffing a movie. And not just Jonah's bots, Emily or Joel's copies too.