Mystery Science Theater 3000 (TV Series) The Time Travelers (2017) User Reviews

The Time Travelers (1964)

[khunkrumark · 7/10 · 18 April 2017]

The Time Travelers (1964)

We are now on episode three of the reboot of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and this marks the 200th episode aired. (Yayyy!)

Time Travelers is a pretty routine 1960s sci-fi vehicle which is badly let down by the tragically misguided inclusion of Steve Franken as comedy relief clown Danny. Franken had a long career in movies and on TV and even had a degree of notable success, but this job wasn't one of them!

Supplies worker Danny manages to hang around a laboratory long enough to get sucked into the future with three scientists. There they meet mutants and other humans who have their own problems trying to get by.

Interestingly, Gene Roddenberry must have watched this a couple of times, too! Wink wink!

This MST3K outing seems pretty routine. As usual, the wordy, scripted riffs come flying in thick and fast. But I tuned out after a while. I think it was because the film itself was too good and I wasn't given enough time between gags to watch it. If you look at the many reviews for the original movie on this website they are almost all seriously respectful and appreciative of the film.

Maybe binge-watching the new series is just taking its toll on my funny bones! Either way, this won't be on top of my list of the reboots to watch a second time... although, of course, eventually I will!

I'm still not sure how I feel about the new 'Gypsy' and Kinga Forrester. The adolescent in me wants this to be a boys only club and no girls allowed!

Funniest gag for me: The squeaking sound effects when someone is rubbing their hands over a filing cabinet or a futuristic musical instrument.

This outing is good but not great.

Probably my favorite of the new season so far!

[mane-57963 · 8/10 · 29 May 2017]

While I liked the previous episodes, Time Travelers is probably my favorite, next to Reptilicus. The movie is a good cheesy sci-fi choice for MST3K, and has a lot of memorable moments. The riffing is good this time too (not that the first 2 episodes had bad riffing at all). The host segments are OK, didn't really get the Neil Patrick Harris cameo here. But other than that, this was a good episode.

Rating: 8.3/10 (Out-of-100): 83%

Good, but not great

[enderman-54088 · 7/10 · 16 June 2017]

I will make this short and sweet. This was a good episode, but not nearly as funny as Reptilicus or Cry Wilderness. The movie is good for MST3K riffing, but there's not as much funny riffs this time. Not that the riffs are bad, they're just not quite as good as the past 2 episodes.

The movie is typical 60s sci-fi traveling to the future type story. Not all that memorable except for the annoying ass Danny.

Overall, this episode was good, even if it was weaker than Reptilicus and Cry Wilderness

"...just parading his ro-batch right by the camera!"

[daughterofolaf · 6/10 · 25 October 2019]

Unfortunately The Time Travelers is one of the weakest episodes of the new seasons. The movie itself is silly but not the worst movie ever made, which could be one reason for the episode not being that great in terms of riffing. On the other hand, the movie itself is not painful to watch, and it is pleasant to look at in as much as everything is clean and nice and the film quality is good so at least there's that (plus, Asa Buchanan).

The main reason I am giving this episode a 6/10 is simply because it contains WAY too many riffs. It is a non-stop onslaught which becomes exhausting and to make matters worse the riffs simply are not very good. There are a few gems tucked in here for sure, however, they become lost and not worth the annoying aspect of sitting through the rest of the episode. This is one of the prime examples of the crew not always understanding that quantity is never more important than quality. I think this movie would have been more well-suited to the crew in the first or second season of the original run when they did not feel the need to fill every moment with riffs, despite the riff quality, and actually sort of watched the movie.

Bottom line: this is not a must-see for fans (or for anyone else), I would not use this as a way to introduce anyone new to the show and if you are starting out in an MST3K adventure on your own, I would NOT start here. Save this for when you are running out of episodes. :P

Good MST3KTR Episode, also The Film Was Made With 2 Different Endings

[verbusen · 7/10 · 10 April 2020]

I watched this film (unriffed) two days ago on Amazon Prime. I enjoyed it so much that when I found out it was recently "riffed" on the Netflix Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Return show, I watched that as well. What I realized was the version on Amazon has a dark ending while the one riffed on Netflix has a happy ending. So, the film was made with two endings. The version used on MST3KTR is also cut short in dramatic scenes, I'm not sure if that was edited by the comedy show or if the nice ending version was also presented that way. Besides the very different endings, the scene with the rocket ship is also much shorter and less dramatic in the happy version. There are other scenes that seemed different as well. I rate the dark ending version that I watched a 9. It's full of very dramatic scenes, I was really surprised. One reason may be it was filmed by later famous cinematographers, Vilmos Zsigmond and László Kovács. Another reason why I enjoyed this film is it has Playboy centerfold model, Delores Wells (hot!). It's cheesy at the start but gets pretty good later and the dark ending version is memorable. As far as riffing goes, this was the funniest MST3K TR episode I watched, but then again its not that hard to make fun of Danny.