TV: Best Brains vs. Cheap Seats

Well, I watched that Cheap Seats episode featuring the guys from Mystery Science Theater 3000 that I talked about yesterday. It could've been better.

The way Mike Nelson and the bots were inserted into the show was clumsy and abrupt. There was no advance notice -- just, all of a sudden, a snippet of the MST3K commercial segue music played, and those familiar silhouettes popped up at the bottom of the screen. No live, in-studio appearance, sadly. What's more, the silhouette footage itself was blatantly recycled; if you were paying attention, you could see the comments didn't synch up with the silhouettes -- in fact, the footage was looped, and simply repeated itself after a minute or so. And hosts Randy & Jason Sklar never even commented on the MST3K cameo. Disappointing.

The reason why they didn't comment, sadly, is that Mike, Tom, and Crow were making comments on Randy & Jason's comedy skits, rather than the sports footage. For a non-regular viewer of the show, it should be noted that the skits were much longer, and much lamer, than is typical of the show, obviously for the express purpose of generating more MST3K mockery. But that's really not how the whole MST3K thing works. They need something sincerely bad to mock; mockery of mock badness kind of defeats the purpose. If they had been allowed to comment on the sports footage for a segment (or two, or the whole show), I think that would've been much funnier, and much more suited to their comedic talents.

Some of you may be saying, "They were commenting on something sincerely bad -- the whole show is sincerely bad." Don't think I can't hear you. Wise asses. Anyway, I disagree. Last night's episode may not have been the best, but Randy & Jason still got off some pretty decent zingers. And I happen to find the Sklars inherently funny; their split-second timing and natural-born comedic chemistry (they are twins, after all) makes me laugh. And, hey, even when they're not at their peak, Mike, Tom, and Crow are still pretty damn funny. Definitely worth seeing for the MST3K completist.