Mystery Science Theater 3000

Hipper than Saturday Night Live, cooler than Arsenio Hall, filled with more pop references than The Andy Warhol Diaries, MST is the perfect postmodern comedy.

Not since Woody Allen's What's Up, Tiger Lily? has anyone had so much fun with bad movies.

It’s enriched by some knowledge of the original series, especially in the host and introductory segments, but once we get into the actual riffing most of that becomes incidental. For new viewers, this will be a great introduction to a beloved property. For the experienced among us, it’s like MST3K never left.

By the time Oswalt presses “the button” and the new orchestral version of the end-credits music plays, it's impossible not to give into the energy and love that went into recreating this strange, vital, and adorable piece of pop-culture history.

With 14 new episodes--the third of which is MST3K’s 200th overall--there are bound to be both hits and misses. And sure enough, once the initial excitement of recognizing the familiar format and bad movies we love has worn off, the differences begin to peek through.

Ray, Yount and Vaughn may take a little time to perfect the chemistry that the various original stars (most of whom worked together for many years) had, but they’re still consistently funny, and that’s all that really matters. The show still has the same joke-a-minute pace, so that any gags that fall flat (or references that fly over viewers’ heads) are quickly forgotten by the next laugh.