Episodes 1008-1012: Share your screenshots and favorite riffs!

1009: Now that I’m older and more matured, I have definitely softened my stance towards Hamlet over the years. It’s still not something I turn to often, but I’m often glad when I do.

Their riffing during the “To Be or Not To Be” is, arguably, some their strongest work ever.

1012’s short: It’s absolutely insane to think they were referencing A Case of Spring Fever as far back as Season 3!

1013: I was definitely going though the gamut of emotions throughout this one. 1999 Me thought this was truly going to be it forever. It’s one of the many reasons I’m so grateful for all the future spin-offs and reboots!

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BONUS

ONE MORE ROUND OF SCREENSHOTS FROM EACH OF THE FINAL SCI-FI ERA EPISODES

1011 - Horrors of Spider Island

(image taken approximately at 12:58; riff taken approximately at 13:01)

Mike: “Well, it’s a nice day, I’m gonna go home like this.”

1012 - Squirm

(image/riff taken approximately at 1:05:32)

Mike: “There, that’s my salad fork.”

1013 - Diabolik

(image/riff taken approximately at 9:32)

Mike: “Sir, are you trying to seduce me?”

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I know I keep saying this all throughout these rounds of episodes, but man… Season 10. What a fantastic season of MST3K!

Hamlet, while not exactly a personal favorite or in my rotation too often either, is a lot stronger and something of a surprise when you revisit it.

It’s particularly effective as a later night relaxation episode.

Right?

And I love the hell out of Squirm. The short and the movie help to make this my favorite installment from Season 10.

Same here.

This was one I never really revisited after it aired. Like you said, there were many emotions - powerful ones, too - tied up in that. It felt like the definitive end to my favorite show, and I didn’t want to go back to an episode that drove home the point that it was the end of the experiments, the end of the adventure.

But yeah, with the new era making its impression felt in hilarious and memorable fashion, it’s a lot easier to rewatch Diabolik. And the riffing is top notch, too!

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It Lives by Night

7:00 - for my brother… “Oh Vikings, why” - Crow

30:27

58:23

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And that’s it, I’m done (unless we do Netflix, but even then, I might be done) but it’s been fun.

As an aside - I did notice when testing a cap via DVD vs. a stream on tubi, that the timestamp was different by a few seconds.

As for season 10, I didn’t find it as brilliant a season as the rest of you did, there were great episodes, but there was also Spider Island, which is one of my least favorites. I also felt the riffing was getting to bit too low brow, too Schoolboyish, with quips about farts and male genitalia, and a lot of dumb, easy stuff… like all the squeak and bat guano jokes in It Lives by Night.

And even though I’ve come to enjoy Hamlet to a degree, I think it would have been smarter, cleverer, had it been done in a peak season, like 5. As it only rarely engages the Shakespearian qualities (they do a Groundlings quip, and you get Fortinbras at the end) I’d rather had more of that and less condom and booger quips.

Now, they still had some clever phrasing in the season, I don’t mean to say it was complete trashiness. And I know they did low brow before, but it was better balanced in the past - they were leaning into the blue material too much by season 10 for my tastes.

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Yeah, I’m thinking I’m done after the classic run, too.

That’s nothing against the Jonah era. I love those episodes (I have Wizards of the Lost Kingdom I and Mac and Me on my personal top ten list), but I don’t think Netflix allows you to Print Screen screengrab, and I can’t put DVDs on my laptop.

But yeah, this has been a lot of fun! I’ve been glad to help out and revisit these episodes, and it’s been terrific to see what screengrabs everyone went with!

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And the DVD grabs are more time consuming, more to do to get them set up and it doesn’t help that my old computer refuses to link to the net, so instead of coming directly here with them or even sending them via email to myself, I have to throw them in a flashdrive and then switch to my new laptop. A minor pain in the neck, but still, a pain.

So, if we do Netflix and I don’t return, just want to say it was a heck of a journey, loved seeing what y’all came up with, and enjoyed the conversations.

You’re all awesome.

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So much word to that. It’s been such an absolute blast!

And you’re awesome, you’re all awesome!

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One of the cooler things to happen during 1013 didn’t actually air (from the “Rough Cut”):

  • Sci-Fi Channel era cast seeing Mitchell is quite a sight!

  • I love that Mike cracks up again when he recognizes the crotchety old shopkeeper from The Brute Man!

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I watched It Lives by Night yesterday, for the first time ever. I must have missed it in its first run on SyFy, and it’s absent from streaming services. So I tracked it down on YouTube.

The episode was fun, but the movie… whew. Not good. It had a lot in common with other MSTed creature movies, such as the menacing sheriff (corresponding to Yuri in Werewolf ), the concerned - slash- borderline hysterical wife (Kathy in Track of the Moon Beast or Natalie in Werewolf ), and the inevitable slide into permanent transformation. I thought that It Lives by Night might be a little more ambitious, since Dr. Beck seemed to be transforming before he was ever bitten, and the movie was coy at first about whether the transformation was real or just in his head. Unfortunately, that’s not how the movie turned out.

Also, the menacing sheriff (played by Michael Pataki, who was also in The Sidehackers ) is presented very negatively, which annoyed me because he was just trying to do his job. Aren’t we supposed to be bothered that our protagonist actually is tearing people’s throats out, and then drags his wife along into it at the end? I guess maybe that’s The Horror? I would have needed to care about those characters a little more to be horrified by it.

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