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The Movie:
For those not familiar with the long-running cult series, "Mystery Science Theater 3000" revolved around the tale of a lowly worker (originally played by Joel Hodgeson and then by Mike Nelson - this is a Nelson episode) sent against his will into space on the "Satellite Of Love". There, he's forced to watch really bad old movies by Dr. Forrester and his assistant Frank, as they monitor his mind.
I've never been too fond of the "between" sequences as Mike chats up his robot friends Crow and Tom Servo, but soon enough there's always a "movie-sign", signaling that the show (and the fun of the series) is about to begin. In this case, it's "Wild World Of Batwoman", a completely awful black and white feature with incredibly poor acting, which gives the trio the chance to make some wonderfully hilarious comments on just how bad the film is.
This one even opens with a short film about kids cheating in class that offers commentary from Mike, Tom and Crow that had me laughing hysterically. Although the series has had some episodes that don't offer quite as many amusing moments, there's more than enough to rip on in "Wild World", and the group takes full advantage.
The DVD
VIDEO/AUDIO: As for the segements where the group is talking outside the theater in the satellite, the image quality is probably the best the episode has ever looked - crisp, clear and with strong colors. As for "The Wild World Of Batwoman" itself, it looks perfectly awful. The movies on MST3K aren't supposed to look great, and this one definitely doesn't. The black and white picture is very soft looking, often quite grainy looking and with the occasional print flaws such as marks and scratches and even some further damage. The picture also jumps very slightly a couple of times.
As for the sound, the same formula applies - the dialogue between the group in the outside segements is crisp and clear, and the sound from the movie is pretty terrible. Although we can clearly hear the comments of the group, the sound from the movie sounds sharp, rough and thin.
MENUS:: All menus are wonderfully animated with MST3K graphics, and there's even a chapter index with clips playing for each chapter. Nice work by Rhino.
EXTRAS: The uncut "non-MST3K" version of "Wild World Of Batwoman" is also included. There's also trailers for other MST3K discs, "The Brain That Wouldn't Die", "Eegah!"(a favorite) and "The Begining Of The End".
Final Thoughts:
Positive: The episode is hilarious, and filled with great comments against the movie.
Negative: It seems to be rather hard to find the new MST3K discs, but they're worth seeking out.
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