What I really liked about this was that while this host segment wasn’t a direct copy of things we’ve seen in the past, it really captured the feel/flavor of old school MST3K.
I’m brought back to the TV’s Frank Shopping Network host segment from Being from Another Planet. Different sketch mechanics, different objectives, different content, etc… but there was this feeling of being home again. Of course Max was gonna buy up everything; that was the fun of it!
God. I love this show. 
Also, I know I’ve said as much elsewhere, but the wrestling promo host segment is an instant classic and an on-the-spot all-timer.
Oh, to go back to that whole idea of homey comfort, there was the Jonah yearbook host segment. My mind went back to the Bots listening to Mike’s embarrassing story from The Brain That Wouldn’t Die…
… but it was a little trickier and more brilliant than that. You thought it was going to go one way, but then BAM, they subverted your expectations, only to go for a double-subversion by looping back to the punchline that you initially anticipated but cast out of your mind because it was originally subverted. That’s smart, and I -heart- that.
Second that “YESSSSSSSS!!!” That little bit of tweaking pulls an enormous amount of weight in getting them to feel more “in the space”!
My takes:
The apparent visual quality hit from the Netflix era was a bit jarring but that quickly passed once the movie started (it’s not like Shadowrama is particularly sensitive to SFX tech!). Thinking about it later, I considered that Netflix was covering a fair amount of cost, especially on the backend, and this time there’s loads of episodes AND the show is developing its own content delivery system… so of course the budget is tighter. With regards to the green-screening, sure, it looks iffy… but so does low-budget greenscreens across modern movies. Once I realized it’s basically aping Birdemic rather than, say, Robot Holocaust it all snapped into place.
The film selected is basically perfect. A movie with El Santo that doesn’t have very much wrestling in it, where we’re watching El Santo watching a “time travel machine” that’s basically the Animus from Assassin’s Creed… perfect.
Took a moment to adapt to the slower riffing pace but, again, I like it. It’s not better or worse; it’s just different.
I like the chat but there was one or two people who were insistent on just griping the entire time. That damaged my enjoyment somewhat, but that’s not on the showrunners. The chat should probably have a block function on the user end. From my own moderation experience, it’d probably be smart for mods to have a soft-mute function that renders trouble users invisible to other users: the trouble user can still post into the void, but no one else sees it. That doesn’t give them the motivation to sockpuppet back in (because they don’t know they’re invisible) and it serves the banning role quite nicely.
I’ll probably watch it again soon enough without the distraction of chat and enjoy it even more thoroughly than I did the first time. 
Finally got to sit down and watch.
Nice pacing on the riffs. I know the sound is an issue, but there were a few riffs where Jonah and the bots couldn’t really hear what was going on either, so I wonder how much tweaking they can really do.
The new door sequence works for me, and it was fun to try and spot the little additions in each “room” (Crow’s head for example)
Not so thrilled with the new song, but I’ll get used to it. They had to do something different since we will have so many hosts this season.
The nacho intermission was fun, but as my husband pointed out, they need a better mic in the break room, as the audio was kinda mushy.
Loved the preview of the Virtual Theater. That is going to be so cool once it’s up and running.
It was the premiere episode, so I expected some roughness around the edges as everyone found their groove again. This was a great opening, though and the rest will only be better.
Oh! A question, in the theater walk through the KingaChrome canisters were color-coded. Has anyone figured out the code?
Since my thoughts are bouncing and going all over the place, I’ll say this:
I like how GPC’s name works in the new Robot Roll Call. It has a certain [clap] [clap] [clap] kinda feel to it now, ya know?
Another random observation:
Can I just say that I love how Pearl bought Gizmoplex tickets to The Crawling Eye for Kinga and herself?
It’s great to see Mary Jo Pehl return and continue to add dimension to her character.
They are random. If you refresh, you’ll see them arbitrarily change color.
The Mst3k Multiverse is real! (Mst-verse?)
More than a full day later and I’m still little amazed I watched a brand new MST3K episode.
Ahh, I can’t see the actual theater yet, so cheers!
There was a coffin full of treasure that the Drac-ster showed to Mrs. Santo at one point, that somehow the amulet and ring included directions to find.
Which confirms the FIRST rule of real estate: Echolocation, echolocation, echolocation!
I laughed out loud a few times and after all isn’t that what it’s all about?
I’m sorry that Joel’s intro volume was so low, I had to plug in my headset to hear it before the audio was fixed. I really wanted to hear the whole thing from the beginning so I hope it’s in the VOD.
The host segments were also pretty great, I loved how homemade everything looked. Very MST.
The tour of the Gizmoplex was awesome. It reminded me of interactive CDs you’d get for PC back in the 90s (Museum of Anything Goes anyone?)
Looking forward to episode 2! (And Manos)
Found it!
The Strong Bad reference occurs around the 1:24:25 mark.
After his wrestling match, Santo hears a knock at the door. He says “Come in,” prompting Servo to say in a Strong Bad voice, “I was just catching up on my emails!”
It’s Mystery Science Theater 3000! This is what I was ready to pay for as soon as I finished ‘The Gauntlet’.
I can say for sure that Hampton has more reps with Crow than you think because he was his puppeteer as well as voice for the “Watch Out For Snakes” Tour.
Which means, it was the second time for Hampton to puppeteer and voice Crow at the same time.
I saw someone mention in the chat last night and then in a random non-MST group today that the reason they’re doing Flatimation ™ is because somehow Netflix owns the old set, but when Joel and the Alternaversal crew made it clear that it was to match the look and feel of the flatter look of the sets now because of green screen. So if you see someone say that, I think you can confidently bust that myth that Netflix owns anything like that.
Hilarious.
Many laughs but “Madam may I interest you in some cholera” was my first huge guffaw