In the not too distant future...

...we'll get a disappointing new MST3K boxed set.

Shout! Factory has had fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 waiting on pins and needles for months, anticipating their first MST3K boxed set release, hailed as the "20th Anniversary Collection," after purchasing the license from Rhino Home Entertainment earlier in the year. They built up to a big announcement at San Diego Comic Con this weekend, with a huge number of original cast members in attendance.

The announcement just arrived, leaving me (along with many other fans) scratching my head, saying "THIS is what you got me all excited about?" The episodes to be included in this set (due to release Oct. 28) are:

211- First Spaceship on Venus
706- Laserblast
904- Werewolf
1004- Future War

Um...yay?

To put this in perspective, a great many key episodes from the series (including many of my favorites) have never made it to DVD (since episodes are each an hour and 20 minutes long, they can't exactly do season sets). Films from the "Gamera" series, for example, or the "Godzilla" series (one of which made it to DVD briefly before being yanked from the shelves several months ago due to copyright issues), or any of the Sandy Frank or Burt I. Gordon classics. My favorite episodes have yet to make it to DVD, either, including the Swedish fantasy "The Day the Earth Froze," Italian epic "Hercules" (with Steve Reeves!), or Pile-On Pete vehicle "Lassie: The Painted Hills."

Now the boxed set does come with some neat features to commemorate the 20th anniversary, the most exciting of which is an exclusive Crow T. Robot figurine (which will honestly be my motivation to purchase the set). They also include "lobby cards," all-new interviews with most of the cast members, and footage from the panel the crew is doing this weekend at Comic Con. The whole shebang is packaged in a collectable tin, which means it probably won't fit on my DVD shelf, but whatever.

But still...all those extras are cool, but the choice of episodes makes for a poor commemoration of the show's 20th anniversary.

(Note: This was actually posted by Annie, despite what the post label says.)