After a highly successful Kickstarter campaign brought the show back to life for one full season on Netflix, fans of ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000′ got a Thanksgiving surprise during a live marathon: the show’s revival has been given a second season! This brings the show’s total season count to 12, and marks a vindication of sorts for Joel Hodgson, one of the series’ creators, who has been working with parent company Shout Factory to bring the show back to the airwaves.
After Hodgson put the potential for a revival on the crowd-funded Kickstarter site, the response from fans was immediate and positive: seeking $2 million to make three episodes with an “ideal” target of $5.5 million to produce a complete 12-episode season, the campaign raised $5.7 million, and the work on the 11th season was officially on. The revived show features Jonah Ray as Jonah Heston, the hapless Gizmonics employee who is trapped by the “evil” Kinga Forrester (Felicia Day) and her sidekick, Son of TV’s Frank (Patton Oswalt), and is forced to watch bad movies alongside a duo of wise-cracking robots.
Hodgson, Day, and Ray made the announcement, as you can see below:
“Hey, everybody, this just in, we got – whaaaat? Season 12 on Netflix!
“Season 12! That’s all thanks to fans and MSTies around the globe, for supporting us throughout this time – and Netflix, thanks Netflix!”
‘MST3K: The Return’ stars Ray, Day, and Oswalt, along with voice talent Baron Vaughn as Tom Servo, Hampton Yount as Crow T. Robot, and Rebecca Hanson as Gypsy. The show is executive produced by Hodgson, Elliott Kalan, Richard Foos, Bob Emmer, Garson Foos, Jonathan Stern, and Harold Buchholz.
Set in the not-too-distant future, a Gizmonic Institute employee is lured to the dark side of the moon by third-generation mad scientist Kinga Forrester and her flunky, Max. He is sat in front of cheesy movies with his robot buddies and forced to tortuously watch bad movies in their entirety as these mad scientists study the effects on his mind.
Season 12 of ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000’ will be coming to Netflix “in the not-too-distant future.”
