The Experiment
The invention exchange was pretty funny. Both of them are equally amusing.
The host segments are good, but nothing to write home about. They're good for a laugh here and there, but honestly, you'll be pretty hard pressed to remember them as a whole. We see J. Elvis Weinstein again, and he does not wear out his welcome, once again. However, the rerecording of Idiot Control Now was a bit of a cringe, if we're being honest here. The host segments were so-so overall.
Killer Fish
Some bandits make away with a lot of diamonds and hide it in a body of water. Somehow, that body of water becomes infested with piranha!
What makes this movie bad?
Your run-of-the-mill semi-horror movie straight out of the 70's. How bad is it? Not that bad, really. Even without contrast with the normal MST affair, this movie is watchable at the very least. Somehow, they roped Lee Majors in this film and he's good as he usually is. There's dumb characters who make dumb choices just like you'd normally see.
Overall, it's a forgettable movie and really not worth getting any kind of worked up about. The worst thing about it is that it's pretty boring. It has its moments of excitement, but it's 70's excitement that didn't age well by any stretch of the imagination. Pain level? A slight itch, I guess.
The Riffs
The gags are quite shiny in this episode. There is a lot of good material from not a lot of good riffable film. They more or less take a killer monster borefest and turn it into something much better with their jokes. The under water scenes with the fish are pretty priceless, and the stupidity of some of the people involved are well riffed.
Then there comes the musical number from under the water, as sung by Gypsy herself. This is definitely the highlight of the whole episode and it is an absolute joy in how they pulled it off. Jonah and all of the bots join in and turn it into a fun time for all. If you don't watch any other part of this episode, that is definitely the part you need to key into.
The Episode
Not a spectacular episode all around, but not at all a loss. It's your normal experiment as far as MST3K goes, and that's always a win. The movie is old enough to be considered the proper time period for the episodes we know and love, but it's also handled in a new sort of way that we can appreciate as the current age of season 12. We'll go with "This episode was good." Then we'll call it a day.