MST3K (K19)

K19 - The Hanger 18 - Government conspiracy, a decapitated astronaut, a crashed UFO with alien corpses inside, an extra-terrestrial origin of man… this movie should've rocked. Somehow, despite all of these benefits and with the Old Man from A Christmas Story, the movie falls flat on its face. One problem is that they had a ton of interesting sci-fi stuff that they wanted to shove into the movie, but they also had a truckload of political intrigue, chase scenes, and sneaking around they also needed to squeeze in. The action plot elements ate up most of the time and left little for the sci-fi elements. The ending of the movie, in particular, felt weird and rushed.

The guys are little subdued with the riffing. Joel especially seems a little out of it. Crow asks him a question in theater, but Joel is apparently spacing at that time and doesn't answer until Servo prompts him. Servo attempts, in Josh's typical style, to fill in the silence as best as he can. As usual, this results in a lot of so-so comments comprising of puns and observations. However, my biggest laugh of the ep was courtesy of the ol' gumball head. One scene has scalpel-wielding scientists standing over an alien in an operating room. Servo quips, "see if he wakes up if you cut into him." Mean, but I laughed out loud.

One of the host segments made me glad that the big reset button is coming up in three episodes. In it, Crow is acting like a toddler who just learned the questions "Why?" and "So?" as Joel attempts to explain to him why getting hit by malt liquor-sized meteors is a bad thing. One of the negatives about dying Joel brings up is that Crow won't get any more "mid-morning pleasure stimulation." Wha? I realize that Joel's up there on the SOL all alone, with only the inhuman embrace of a robot to warm him on lonely nights… but, c'mon. I don't need to know, much less picture, that! Only slightly less disturbing is when, a half-hour later in the theater, Joel comments that his nipples are "more pouty" than the dead alien. Joel really needs to build himself a nice holodeck and relax Riker-style. (5/10)

film d. James L. Conway (1980)
mst d. ?? (14 May 1989)