Four years after publishing an academic essay collection on TV’s Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 2011’s In the Peanut Gallery, McFarland & Company dips back into Deep 13 territory with Chris Morgan’s The Comic Galaxy of Mystery Science Theater 3000: Twelve Classic Episodes and the Movies They Lampoon, a refreshingly accessible tour of the cult series’ 11-season run that works as both a history overview and greatest-hits tour.
As the subtitle says, Morgan ticks through a dozen key episodes, one per season except the final, which earns two chapters. (The author also throws 1994’s Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie in for good measure, as well as a 12-page discussion of shorts.) In doing so, he’s able to relay the show’s entire lifespan, from a scrappy, local TV time-filler to a pair of national major-cable networks, and detail how things evolved as the years passed, on both sides of the screen.
The approach also allows Morgan to dive deep into what he feels are representative eps, to examine not only the movies skewered and screwed, but the riffs doing the skewering and screwing. Because the book is written for total accessibility, his commentary can be a joy to read; take, for example, this observation of second-season gem Catalina Caper: “Two different women lose their tops in this movie, which is either one too many or 20 too few. Either do that bit once or be completely morally and intellectually bankrupt. There is no room for middle ground.”
Refreshingly, while he clearly is a hardcore MST3K fan, he’s not a blinded fanboy; in fact, he tasks the creators to task for mean-spirited jokes on actors’ weight and/or appearance. On the other hand, readers may be left questioning Morgan’s own judgment over what classifies as a classic episode. Most notably, while he acknowledges season-four closer Manos: The Hands of Fate as being synonymous with the show, he writes, “That is not to say this episode is the favorite of most people. It’s a strong episode, sure, but … the riffing isn’t top of the line” — and this opinion stands in stark contrast to decades’ worth of fan-favorite lists.
There are other eyebrow-raisers, from him doubting the MST3K creators would ever take on Syfy dreck like Sharknado (which they did last July), to calling Star Wars’ special effects as “somewhat poor.” But to each his own, right? Less forgivable are an overuse-to-point-of-abuse of “as stated previously” and factual errors (Roger Corman didn’t make a Captain America movie), but at least the latter arrives in very short supply.
Bottom line: Comic Galaxy comes strongly recommended to all membership levels of MSTies. While it’s not the definitive history of the revolutionary series, it’s a good one. —Rod Lott