DANGER: DIABOLIK


Opening Host Segment: Servo has been cleaning his room, and now he can’t get any leverage from his hover skirt. Mike checks to see what’s causing the block and finds the Satellite of Love Employee’s Manual, written by Pearl (the preface reads something like “Torturing Mike since 1994”). There aren’t really a lot of benefits for the crew--who am I kidding, there aren’t any benefits for ‘em!!

Host Segment 1: The gang is still trying to find something useful in the manual when the SOL begins to shake around. Down in Castle Forrester, we find that Pearl has bought a new joystick to use on the satellite and sends them into a roll. However, she ends up breaking it, locking the SOL into a landing protocol pattern. She angrily demands that Observer “unprotocol” it, but he’s useless because the 7-Up she playfully poured into his brain pan has messed up some of his higher powers along with his speech receptors. Bobo asks the obvious question: Why don’t they just use the satellite’s self-destruct mechanism? Pearl goes for it, and there are several panicked seconds on the SOL:

Gypsy: I love you Mike, I love you Crow, I love you Servo.
Mike: I love you Gypsy, I love you Crow, I love you Servo.
Crow: I love you Gypsy, I love you Mike, I love you Servo.
Servo: I love you Gypsy, I love you Mike.
(fizzle *pop* no explosion)
Crow: Weren’t you going to…
Servo: I was gonna say it! I just forgot your name!

Needless to say, Pearl reacts badly to the news that the satellite will be returning to Earth [Femme’s Note: If she finds a buyer for the castle after she was through with the Great Hall, I’ll be one surprised lady, let me tell you….], going on a rampage and punching out Bobo. The crew celebrates: “It was done!” “Yay! Somebody did it!” But Pearl has one last movie for them to watch because, well, heck, it’s the only button that still works. She sends Diabolik up, then tries to clean her face up a little bit [Femme’s Note: I know plenty of Goth chicks who would kill for the makeup job Pearl had in this scene!]. Mike goes into the theater for the final movie, but Crow and Servo prefer to bask in the moment.

Crow: We won’t be hearing Movie Sign back on Earth.
Servo: Yeah, let’s enjoy it.
Mike: Would you get in here please?!
Crow: We won’t be hearing that back on Earth either.
Servo: Let’s enjoy it.

Host Segment 2: Mike is all packed and ready to head back to Earth. Unfortunately, all he’s packed in his monogrammed suitcase is bags and bags and bags of… rice. Crow, on the other hand, has shoved all of his belongings into a couple of Hefty bags. There’s a half-opened can of oysters and some pitas in the bottom if Mike wants to dig in. Meanwhile, Servo has been counting all his extra Servos and discovers he has way too many (well over 500). He decides to activate the self-destruct mode that was placed in every copy, but blows himself up as well. Another Servo comes in and informs Mike and Crow that one of his clones got hold of the remote detonator and decided to act like the real Servo. Servo sets off the detonator again, and this one also blows up. A third Servo enters looking for the remote detonator…. The segment ends here, but I kinda wonder how many other Servos they went through till they found the original.

Host Segment 3: Crow asks Mike a very important question--will they be getting severance pay for all the years they’ve spent on the SOL? Since he has no idea, they decide to ask Pearl. Pearl, however, is way too busy to answer any questions right now--she’s packing up to report to her new job as Dictator of Qatar (the first thing she’s gonna do is buy them a “u”). Observer says he was kinda hoping that he and Pearl and Bobo would get an apartment somewhere, but Pearl declines (“I kinda have to live there to be the dictator…. Besides, you smell bad.”). Bobo, meanwhile, has a new job at the zoo--and they want him to start right away as the star attraction. Observer reluctantly decides to become the all-knowing universal conscious of some planet he didn’t want to go to anyway. Pearl finally answers Crow’s question by telling him to turn to page 74 of the handbook. The page says NO! in huge block letters.

Host Segment 4: Servo and Gypsy are excited to be going to Earth after all these years, Mike’s glad to be finally going home, but Crow is “ascared”--the satellite is the only home he’s ever known and besides, Earth is a scary place. Mike thought this might happen, and sings a little song about the good things Earth has to offer. It boosts Crow’s spirits immensely, but scares the bejeezus out of Servo, who wedges himself under the desk. Mike is peeved because now he has to write another song.

Ending Host Segment: The movie is over, and Servo is steering the satellite safely to Earth. Yeah, right. The satellite begins to break up one deck at a time (one of the decks catches fire before it breaks away, and deck 8 takes a detour through decks 9 and 10). Mike calls on Pearl one last time for help, but she is trying to reenact the series finale of the Mary Tyler Moore Show with Bobo and Observer. Mike distracts her long enough for the sidekicks to escape. Pearl advises Mike to “Move on, Nelson. I am” and disconnects the castle-to-Cambot feed. Back on the satellite, everyone is freaking out (Crow mainly because he can’t find his other sweater). There is a blinding flash of white light, then an eerie silence for a few seconds. Cut to much later, in a small apartment where Mike, Crow, Servo, and apparently Cambot [Femme’s Note: Well, how else would we be able to look in on the guys one last time?] are now living. Gypsy has her own internet stock company which the guys decided not to get in on (Crow: “Well, I made a fart noise, she only took it as a no.”), but the guys love their garden level, one bedroom, one-half bath apartment on the bus line. Mike states that it’s incredible that they were able to walk away from the crash [Femme’s Note: What the heck happened to the Satellite of Love? That’s one thing I’ll always wonder… or maybe just work a misting around!]. The bots shush him because the afternoon movie is about to start--The Crawling Eye. Servo and Mike immediately start ragging on the film, as Crow ponders why the movie seems to be so familiar to him….

Stinger: “Is that stud coming?”

Femme’s Note (this is a long one): Well, I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again… I’m not ready to believe it’s all over. I’m a lot like Pearl was at the beginning of the ep in that respect--crying out in anger and frustration that there is really nothing I can do to stop everything from ending. Only, I’m not to the moving on part just yet. I think the B-Movie Channel is a viable option, especially considering that Barbbb is not allowed to talk about the talks between BBI and BMC. I think that there is still hope for MST3K, maybe not in its current form, but in some way it will last a long, long time (to quote from Semisonic, one of my favorite bands). As long as Misties are willing to fight for our show, to fight for free speech in the theaters, to shout “Hi-Keeba!” for no reason, to tell the world “You know you want me, baby!”, to keep circulating the tapes, and to MST everything from SPAM email to poorly written fan fiction, MST3K will go on and on (to quote Celine Dion, of whom I’m not all that fond, but the idea is fitting). So, please, join me one last time in the battle cry:
Viva MST3K!!
Thank you, friends and fellow misties. And thank you, Best Brains, for all the years you’ve given us. Rock on :-)


Back to Femmey’s Video Library