Agreed that season 4 is the first fully formed season. S3 has great moments and episodes but by the start of 4 they’re completely locked in and officially firing on all cylinders.
Also agreed that Pod People, despite the brilliant Idiot Control Now, is an incredibly dull movie.
I find S8 to be, well… not terrible per se but wildly uneven. For every episode I love there are two others which I have to slog through. Again, it’s the overemphasis on repetitive anger and meanness in the riffs and sketches which can be wearing. Both its first and last episodes are really tough on me. Revenge just feels like they’re nervous and awkward in their new space with new people. Overdrawn is indifferently acted, and the riffers’ over-reliance on fat jokes is super-annoying to me.
Their chemistry in Season 11 was like a 8th-grader constructing a stink bomb. I was willing to attribute this to Oswalt’s personal trauma at the time, but the writing was pretty bad to start with. Since then I’ve thought it has been better.
I don’t like the extra bots and I really didn’t like that part of season 11 where Jonah would introduce a new bot and Tom and Crow just get angry about it. That did absolutely nothing for me as a running theme.
I have no large complaints, but I’m weird like that. In other things I am a fan of I can find much to criticize, but MST is immune to my cynicism. The laughs from every season of this show, and every performer, helped me through many bad times. Being an "essential worker’ and surviving Covid at the beginning of the pandemic, as well as beating alcoholism before the pandemic, were due in no small part to the laughs I found. I loved not having to think too much, with the exception of very obscure riffs, which were a happy form of brain boosting. There are minor quibbles, but if it weren’t fun I wouldn’t watch, and I wouldn’t back it. I just admire every creative person on MST3K who contributed to my simple joy. It’s how I made it through. I can understand other opinions and where they stem from, but I look at this show as an angel in disguise. I’m grateful. Plus I have made friendships because of the show.
Nph singing with kinga. Season 7. And everything involving a home built robot. K. Mostly tongue in cheek, but keep things positive if we can here. Doesn’t put on a good show for the new joiners