From: eichlertwothedigitnotspelled@comcast.net   
      
   Happy holidays, MST3K fans.   
      
   Did you know there was a Kickstarter-financed 13th season of MST3K?  I   
   certainly didn't, but while scrolling through Prime's streaming   
   contents I saw an MST3K movie called "The Bubble" that didn't look at   
   all familiar, so I queued it up...and Joel is the host!?!?  Awesome.   
      
   Apparently they decided to have rotating hosts for season 13 - I've   
   watched five and a half episodes so far and have seen three different   
   hosts (Jonah, Joel and a woman named Emily).  Crow and Servo also have   
   different voice actors depending on the epside - I have to admit that   
   for the host segments, one of the Crows sounds so different that it   
   bothered me, but once the movie riffing started I didn't really notice   
   it any more.   
      
   For those who don't have Prime, the episodes are also on the free   
   FreeVee streaming service.   
      
   I did some Googling and discovered that I actually kind of came in   
   near the end of the season.  Many of the host segments are designed to   
   explain the new multi-host format and are best watched in the correct   
   order to make sense, so I did some more Googling and found the episode   
   order:   
      
   Santo in the Treasure of Dracula - the masked Mexican wrestler returns   
   in what seems to be a film where someone took an old Dracula movie and   
   bookended it with scenes of Santo watching the action via a time   
   machine TV or something like that. To be honest, I didn't think this   
   was a very good episode, especially as the kick-off for a new season.   
      
   Robot Wars - cheesy 80s movie that's basically a Transformers rip-off.   
   The acting is bad and the dialog is worse, but the riffing was great   
   and some of the robot fighting special effects were almost passable.   
      
   Munchie - another cheesy 80s movie that's basically an ET rip-off. Dom   
   DeLuise voices the wisecracking alien/monster/whatever it's supposed   
   to be. Loni Anderson plays the main character's mother. A very young   
   Jennifer Love Hewitt plays his school crush. Probably the most "name"   
   stars that have ever been in an MST3K movie.  The riffing was   
   excellent.  My favorite of the episodes I've watched so far, even   
   though the movie itself was terrible.   
      
   Doctor Mordrid - I'm only half-way through this one but it appears to   
   be a Doctor Strange rip-off.  A guy with superpowers has to save the   
   Earth from a super villian who steals platinum and diamonds as part of   
   his evil plan.  The riffing so far has been OK - lots of Marvel and   
   Lord of the Rings references.   
      
   Demon Squad - haven't watched it yet   
      
   Gamera vs Jiger - haven't watched it yet   
      
   The Batwoman - haven't watched it yet   
      
   Million Eyes of Sumuru - haven't watched it yet   
      
   The Shape of Things to Come - haven't watched it yet   
      
   The Mask - haven't watched it yet   
      
   The Bubble - a man and his pregnant wife are flying to the hospital in   
   a small plane and are forced by a strange storm to land in a town   
   where everyone acts like robots who just repeat the same line of   
   dialog over and over. Then they learn there's an invisible bubble over   
   the entire town and need to find a way to escape. I actually thought   
   the movie itself wasn't that bad, although the ending was crap.   
      
   The Christmas Dragon - haven't watched it yet   
      
      
   I'm going to try to watch the rest of the season via streaming, and   
   if/when the blu-ray version that Kickstarters got becomes available to   
   the general public, I'll almost certainly buy it.   
      
     -- Bob   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)