‘Mystery Science Theater 3000’ New Season Premiere Date Announced by Netflix

Last Thanksgiving, Netflix announced that it had renewed the cult-classic Mystery Science Theater 3000 for a twelfth season. Now, the streaming giant is giving fans something extra to be thankful for this year with its season premiere date.

That’s right, MST3K‘s new season will premiere on Thanksgiving 2018 — Thursday, November 22 to be more precise — a date that has major significance for the series according to creator original host, and executive producer Joel Hodgson.

“Thirty years ago on Thanksgiving Day 1988 is when we premiered Mystery Science Theater 3000 in the Minneapolis market,” Hodgson told A.V. Club. “We were competing with 60 Minutes for the same time slot, and I think history has shown which is the better show.”

If you aren’t familiar, the series is set on the Satellite of Love, where hapless human test subject Jonah Heston (Jonah Ray) is forced to watch cheesy movies with mad scientist Kinga Forrester (Felicia Day) attempting to drive him insane. Jonah copes with is predicament by riffing on the movies with the help of his robot friends, Crow and Servo. The eleventh season ended on a major cliffhanger — Max/”TV’s Son of TV’s Frank” (Patton Oswalt) sent a giant metal serpent on Jonah with Crow and Servo trapped in orbit above the dark side of the moon — so fans will be excited to see just what happens next.

And while details about Season 12 are limited to its release date and confirmation that all five of the show’s cast members will return, the fact that it is returning will continue Hodgson’s efforts to refresh the beloved program.

“People really care about Mystery Science Theater. They really want to understand where it’s going. People are really, really concerned when they said ‘Where’s everyone else? It looks like you’re doing this alone. What’s going on?’” Hodgson told ComicBook.com when the series was originally being funded on Kickstarter. “I really had to sit them down and say “This is why. It’s about refreshing it, it’s not a reunion show.” And once I explained it to everybody and gave them the reason and examples in history of other brands, from Bond films to Doctor Who to Saturday Night Live, if it’s a good enough concept, it should be able to be allowed to be refreshed and new people should be able to get in there and do it….I want to make really smart design moves. I don’t want to do anything that doesn’t make it better or doesn’t make it more efficient as far as a way to deliver jokes.”

Mystery Science Theater 3000 Season 12 will premiere on Thursday, November 22, 2018 on Netflix.