a review of

Watched the MST3K version (S01E01), star rating is for the movie itself. THE EPISODE: The first Comedy Channel MST3K episode, more polished than the KTMAs I've seen but also not as deftly written as later episodes of the show. I immediately notice a somewhat more adolescent tone to some of the jokes, which is perhaps unsurprising given that one of the writers (Josh "J. Elvis" Weinstein, who also voiced Tom Servo and played Dr. F's original sidekick Larry) was literally a teenager at the time. There's also a couple of surprisingly sexist and ableist cracks in the mix here that wouldn't have flown in later episodes; There's nothing too shocking here but it's nice to see they grew out of it later. THE MOVIE: Not a bad '50s British SF movie, a little slow-moving but the reveal of the monsters at the end is still pretty effective even if the effects themselves are semi-fakey. Kind of an early stab at doing Lovecraftian horror, even if the movie itself situates it in a more typically '50s "flying saucer" context.