Mystery Science Theater 3000's Jonah Ray and Felicia Day on How the Gizmoplex Helped the Show

05/04/2022 03:55 pm EDT

The upcoming, thirteenth season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 will take the cult-favorite TV series do a proprietary app and website, The Gizmoplex, where fans can buy in, keep MST3K alive, and get exclusive access to new episodes, interactive events, a deep back catalog of content, and more. The series, which was born out of public access television before moving to Comedy Central and the Sci-Fi Channel, got a feature film from Universal before it was over the first time. A revival in recent years took the show to Netflix, and introduced some big-name series regulars, including Felicia Day (Supernatural) and Jonah Ray (Galaxy Brains podcast).

So -- what's the difference? Why go to The Gizmoplex? The easy answer is, after being cancelled by Netflix, the team behind MST3K was able to crowdfund new episodes, and had to find a new home. Creatively, though, the cast things they gained something by losing the budget and overhead offered by Netflix.

"I mean, the writing was the same," Ray told ComicBook.com. "The creativity of it all and putting it together. But the shooting of it was way smaller scale, and a bit more fun. When we were doing the Netflix ones, we were on these unnecessarily large sound stages, in Hollywood, and the valley. And it was too many people, too much going on, too fast. And then these, we had time when we were shooting the sketches at least to kind of go, 'Hold on. What's a funnier angle? What's a thing we can do?' That's how I feel about this season. We just had a bit more time to play."

"I was so excited to be directed by Jonah this season, who by the way, is a fantastic director," Day told ComicBook.com. "And working with him is so great because we did get to follow comedic impulses, where before we'd have to have several people sign off on changes, and everything was a little more rigid because it was a bigger institution. But this one is just really... Everybody's getting together making the funniest scene they can, maybe on a budget, a little bit. But at the same time, those constraints didn't hamper anything. I think it actually enhanced everything."

The Gizmoplex will be the only place to see new episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and will kick off with a weekend of premiere screenings: Santo in The Treasure of Dracula (May 6), Robot Wars (May 7), and Beyond Atlantis (May 8). After that, the Gizmoplex will release brand-new MST3K content every two weeks, including new episodes and shorts, as well as livestream premieres and special events.

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