Daggernow Reviews

Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988–1999)

Strictly for fan-boys and fan-girls

[4 August 2004]

This show was one big steaming-hot pile of crap and in no way deserved to be compared to real shows that have professional comedy writers and are actually funny. Sure this show eventually showed a bad movie to laugh at but first you had to wade through several minutes of raw sewage with Pearl and her ape-man. I like books about bad movies so I gave this show more than enough chances to win me over but it never did. I've got some random thoughts to throw out about this terrible show.

This show was so bad it was just as much fair game for ridicule as any of the movies it showed. Sitting there making fun of how stupid and unfunny this show was was much more entertaining than anything on the show itself.

Without a movie to make fun of the people on this show were never the least bit funny.

Every shot of Mike Nelson looks like somebody's driver's license photo.

The frantic and paranoid pro-Mystery Science Theater arguments don't impress me since they all boil down to "Mommy! Someone said something mean about that puppet show I like!"

This show did not invent making fun of bad movies. There were books TV shows and film festivals devoted to bad movies long before Pearl and her puppets came along.

People are free to talk about what they don't like about any TV show especially one as stupid as this one.

As funny as it is to compare the people on this show with the comic book guy I think a better comparison is with the geeks from the show where Homer was the voice of Poochy. Remember the lifeless geeks who picked apart tiny continuity errors in Itchy and Scratchy cartoons and even said "I hope someone got fired for that!" Now those guys remind me of the cast of this show!

Getting rid of Pearl might have helped but I doubt Mike could handle the hosting chores alone. Reciting his lines of dialogue seemed too intellectually taxing for him.

Don't believe the glowing praise some people push about this horrible show. Most of the reviews are preaching to the converted since for the most part only the show's fans ever gave it a second thought. The problem with cult shows like this is their devoted worshipers would pretend it was funny even if the people on this show just clucked like chickens every show. Casual viewers (people who have lives instead of internet message boards)expect to be genuinely entertained when they watch a show and therefore recognize how bad this show really was.

This show's slogan should have been "Our own material sucks but just watch us try to ridicule others!"

The other bad reviews emphasize the puppets too much but the good reviews praise the show too much so maybe it all evens out.

I've never been someone who thinks constructing a web site about a TV show somehow makes you part of the show yourself and if you had already seen the movie being shown this show had nothing at all going for it.

People who use puppets and dress in ape suits and put on moronic comedy skits like they did on this show are not in a position to be snide and snotty about other people's work.

Shows making fun of bad movies have always been popular and I think some people fall in love with the good idea behind this show and let it blind them to how sloppy the execution was.

Watching these people act like their own stupid show was any better than the movies being shown was like watching a fat bald guy ridicule someone else's physical appearance.

You're better off just throwing in a tape or DVD of a bad film and making fun of it with some friends rather than watch this lousy show.

Doctor Who (1996 TV Movie)

Not as big a disaster as some of the reviews say it is.

[30 July 2004]

This attempted pilot for a new Doctor Who series may have faults but I think some of the criticism is off-base. The original Doctor Who series was never a slave to realism or it's own continuity the way shows like Star Trek or The X-Files were. It was more like a long-running comic strip with it's light "who cares about obsessive fan-boys and fan-girls" approach. This show always played fast and loose with it's own continuity and often contradicted what had gone before for the sake of the present story being aired. So many fans went bananas over things like the Doctor being half-human and the Eye of Harmony being on board the Tardis and the Master being able to slither around in that black snake form to find a new host body or why he was put on trial by the Daleks. For a show that always pretty much made it up as it went along that's a waste of time. I've got some random thoughts to throw out about this attempt to revive the series.

As for the Doctor being half-human I'll repeat my remark about this show making it up as it went along. From what I recall the show was on the air for years before it even established that he was a Time Lord so a sudden revelation about a half-human heritage isn't as way out as it first seems.

My view on the Master being able to slither around in snake form is also to repeat that this show was never a slave to it's own continuity. I'd like every Dr Who fan who can't sleep at night fretting over this bit to explain to me what the White Form in the story where Tom Baker regenerated into Peter Davison was and why the other regeneration scenes took place without such a White Form "merging" with the Doctor.

As for why the Eye of Harmony was on board the Tardis I'll say that if a new Doctor Who series had resulted from this pilot movie they could have done a flashback story at some point featuring Sylvester McCoy's Doctor and explained all that.

I thought the Master being put on trial by the Daleks was kind of cool - sort of like they were saying "This guy is so evil even the Daleks are outraged!" If a new series had resulted they could have done another Sylvester McCoy flashback story at some point to explain what led up to the Master being put on trial by the Daleks. Maybe he tried to take over Skaro and turn all the Daleks into his own personal hit-squad or some other nonsense.

Sylvester McCoy was pretty cool for agreeing to appear in this movie to give the potential new Doctor Who series a legitimate link to the original British show. The poor guy had to come in with a lame regeneration scene and went out the same way and the effort was for nothing since the show's own fans turned up their noses at this film and the new series was never given a chance. A new Doctor Who series that didn't live up to the continuity geeks' vision of the show would have been better than no Doctor Who series at all. Just another example of the down-side to cult shows.