A very old and early Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode has been found and uploaded to YouTube. When we say “old,” we mean from the show’s first run on Minnesota’s local indie station KTMA in 1988.
That film is K03, aka Star Force: Alien Fugitive II. It was the show’s third episode (or fourth, if you count the unaired pilot) and is a compilation movie made from several episodes of the Japanese sci-fi series Star Wolf. According to a recent MST3K Reddit post, a fan found a recording at a Minneapolis garage sale and later digitized. Before this, the series’ creators didn’t have legal rights to all the episodes from their KTMA days. (And in some cases, they also just weren’t fond of that older material.)
Given how early K03 came in the show’s lifecycle, there’s bound to be some rough spots fans won’t be able to ignore. Even so, commenters are just amazed they’re even getting to watch the movie at all, and glad to complete the earliest era of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Some have also likened this to to the recently restored Doctor Who episodes that hadn’t been seen since 1965 and previously considered lost to time before now.
The good news for MST3K fans is the fun doesn’t stop with K03: four new, fully Kickstarted episodes are coming later this year courtesy of RiffTrax.
[thanks, AVClub]
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