Tuesday, October 9, 2012

MST3K: Episode 1013 - Diabolik

I'm watching all of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes in order. More about that here and here.

Episode 1013: Diabolik

First aired: Sci-Fi Channel on 8 August 1999
Availability: MST3KVideos.com fan copy

Our (anti) hero.
The official final episode, the series finale, aired eight times in seven weekends from 1999 to 2002. I never saw any of them.

I'm not sure why I didn't see them. Probably aired on a day or at a time where there was a conflict. Eight times. Because I knew it was the finale and wanted to see it, but it just didn't work out. And, I don't recall the reason.

So, when I began this project of watching all the episodes, I had copies of all the shows. I either owned the DVD, the iTunes episode, the VHS tape, or a fan copy of the unreleased episodes. But, I held out watching this one, holding it until the end.

"If he had only stolen a little less..."
And, now, the end.

The movie itself isn't all that much of a big deal. It was released back in the 1960s under the name Danger: Diabolik but was simply Diabolik when MST3K got their hands on it.

It's based on an Italian comic strip, also called Diabolik, but nobody outside Italy knows much about it. I mean, I suppose there's the chance you might, but that's not necessarily something you'd want to put on a resume or anything.

That's not Largo.
Diabolik is an anti-hero. He's a criminal that was pretty ruthless at first, but became more of a Robin Hood type of character over time. He's got a girlfriend named Eva and constantly thwarts the efforts of Inspector Ginko. But, American audiences don't know that much about Diabolik, and the movie doesn't help. It assumes you already know who Diabolik is. Well, now, to some degree, you do.

Diabolik steals a bunch of money which he uses as a bed to bed his girlfriend after using a winch, a speedboat, and some Jaguars to escape the authorities, but his antics are causing problems for all the other villains, including one that looks like Largo from Thunderball, but without the eyepatch, so Largo Lookalike conspires with the Inspector Ginko, who looks like the head of the spy ring in Topaz, to capture Diabolik so he kidnaps Eva and lays a trap, but Diabolik, being clever and, um, diabolic, outsmarts Largo, then goes on to steal a 20-ton gold bar (no, really), but the Inspector has a radioactive trace on the gold, finds Diabolik, arrests and leaves Diabolik encased in gold ... but Diabolik is actually okay and winks at the camera, meaning we don't need to worry, he'll be back killing innocent people in no time. The end.

The movie made sure we knew Diabolik's girlfriend had boobies.
Nothing special, like I said. They teased with bits of the lead actress' skin, and M&tB played off that a good bit. Otherwise, the movie is kinda watchable, in a American playing lead in an Italian movie kinda way.

What is special are the Host Segments. They tell the story of the end of the experiments on the Satellite of Love. Sure, they did that already in Episode 706: Laserblast. The plot is different, though. Dr. Forrester intentionally cut the SoL loose and they drifted off to the edge of space. This time, though, Pearl Forrester doesn't mean to start the re-entry procedure, then can't stop it.

The show concludes with Mike, Crow, and Servo living together, watching bad movies on TV, starting with The Crawling Eye.

As good as the final show of Season Seven was at wrapping up the series, this was as good as it was different.
Pearl says goodbye to the captives on the Satellite of Love.Mike, Crow, and Servo make a new life together ... watching bad movies.
I saw this episode for the first time recently, after I had watched every other episode, in order, of Mystery Science Theater 3000. So, for me, there is closure.

It was a fun run, and a great show. And now, I'm done.

With the show. There are still a couple of other things about MST3K I'll cover, but the goal of the original project is done.

I'm exhausted. Happy, but exhausted.



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