MST3K: Season Two wrapup

Season Two is behind us. Season Three lies ahead. First of the week, I'll have the first episode of the season covered. So, let's do a quick wrapup of Season Two...

Frank joins Dr. Forrester

We lost Josh, but picked up Frank. Oh, and Kevin took over as Servo. And Mike is getting on-screen time. And Joel has a lot of jumpsuits.

I do miss Josh. But I really like Frank. Josh also took Servo from infancy into adulthood. Kevin has taken over, and is making Servo his own, without losing the groundwork Josh laid.

Frank is a joy. The relationship with Dr. Forrester is different, but it's a great dynamic. The Senior Partner/Junior Partner relationship with Dr. Erhardt was good, to be sure, but the Mad Scientist/Trainee relationship is good, too.

They've settled down and have a great format for the show. The only thing missing is the stand-alone shorts, instead of the episodes from a serial. Yes, they showed a stand-alone short just a few episodes ago, but it's been the only one so far. Looking ahead, they haven't fully abandoned the serials and changed to short subjects, but that will come.

Somebody sure could go fer a nice hamburger sammich and some french fried potaters

Some of the lines that get repeated in later seasons get introduced in Season Two. For instance, the whole "I sure could go fer a nice hamburger sammich and some french fried potaters" came from this season. That's not exactly what the character said, but close enough. And "thees seemplifies evvvv'ryting!" also came from this season's serial.

All of the episodes in Season Two aired in production order. That is, the first one produced was the first one aired, the second one produced was the second one aired, and so on.

Season One had a couple out of order. The second one produced aired first, followed by the first one produced. Then the whole "numbered out of order" thing that began with the 4th episode.

As best as I can tell, the production order and the production numbering are in sync from here on out, though some episodes don't air in production order. Season Two did, but it will be the last season to do that until Season Seven.

In the first two national seasons on The Comedy Channel, they had 13 episodes each. Beginning with Season Three, we'll see them on the rebranded Comedy Central, and with a 24-episode season. That means almost two years worth of work in one year. Think about that. We'll see how that affects things.

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