Just before 8 PM Eastern on March 4th, 2022, this appeared…

After three years, Mystery Science Theater 3000 returned as an independent streaming channel known as the Gizmoplex. Fans were waiting for the classic opening. What they got was this…

Which was followed by this…

It was 30 minutes late, but the new era began with Kinga Forrester and Max being featured in the opening credits instead of Jonah. They explained they just opened a new place called the Gizmoplex where the cheesy movies (the worst they can find) can be featured.
How they got the cash is rather murky, but that’s bound to be “explained”. Their setup for the new Gizmoplex is pretty good. Kinga looks better, but Max is clearly is wearing a toupee with his regular hair (which is the joke, of course).

This year, there will be two riffers, Jonah (Ray) and Emily (Marsh). That may explain why the Mads sing the theme with Servo. It also appears Jonah came back quietly after his tour ended a couple of years back. Servo can blink and Servo has a new dome.

The movie they had to face was El Santo and the Treasure of Dracula. It’s what happens when a Mexican wrestling movie is merged with a Dracula movie and time travel (and maybe a dash of Dark Shadows). Santo (who’s a masked scientist) sends a woman into the past, where she meets up with Dracula and even winds up as one of the undead. She’s brought back, but apparently they also discover there’s a big treasure that’s gotten the attention of some hooded guy and the local mob. Somehow a wrestling match is involved, along with bringing back Dracula by removing the stake that killed him (Buffy wants a word about that).

After a long break, it took a while for the riffs to warm up. After the intermission, they were in high gear. The host segments were also pretty good with Jonah showing he can channel Gene Okerlund while the bots could recreate the WWF from 35 years ago. As for the look, they are using a lot of green screen because of the challenge of making media under a pandemic (Netflix will have a movie about that soon). It’s early, but it’s good the show is as cheesy as the movies they unleash. Maybe in a world without COVID they can go back to real sets.

So, let’s look at the riffs:

“What kind of test subject do you need to find?”:  A gullible one.

El Santo’s look:  He looks like a Hershey’s Kiss in a suit.

“But a vampire in America”:  In this economy?

Dracula breaks a mirror:  You’ll have seven years back suck..er…luck

Dracula is defeated in the worst way possible:  “It’s a sunquake”

There were also jokes on the bands Spice Girls and L7 (both applying to Dracula’s wives), Austin Powers, Dark Souls, Willy Wonka and the Mannequin movies (this time, it’s a guy).

Joel and a couple of his minions had their own Invention Exchange. They had a soda machine with the most generic names for familiar soft drinks like Mountain Don’t, A&W Foot Beer and Spite (the official drink of a news channel most people don’t like). They even had a recipe for nachos, and commercials thanks to major sponsors. This is clearly a new era for MST.

The plan is to have new shows every two weeks, with movies on the first Friday of each month. Then, they have shorts and special events. What’s interesting is they’ll have live post-game shows after every show, even the shorts. It’s likely they’ll have behind the scenes stuff along with the usual discussions about how (!?) the movie they just saw was made.

For now, only backers of the project will get to see the episodes. It will be available to all in May. By that time, the quirks should be
smoothed out.
If this works, could there be a Buffy-only channel? A Marvel channel?
Maybe, but this proves a show about mocking bad movies is something everyone needs.
Oh, and Joel will be back for a couple of movies, too.

Learn more at gizmoplex.com