Another Bert I. Gordon masterpiece, "The Beginning of the End" features a wooden Peter Graves waxing philosophic about the effects of radiation on locusts (not grasshoppers), which have grown to varying sizes and are maurauding through an oddly-mountainous Illinois, dispatching of entire towns.  Graves is accompanied by a plucky female journalist and (briefly) a deaf-mute gardening assistant.  Add in half-hearted special effects (shot after shot of locusts crawling up postcards of buildings) and some leery directing (an opening car sequence that takes forever to end; a lascivious locust staring into an apartment at a freshly showered woman in a towl), and you've got your typical D-Grade schlock.

This is one of the first episodes from the Mike Nelson season (the back of the DVD box features Joel's friendly mug; don't be fooled), and as such, there is some hesitancy in the jokes, some ground feeling.  The opening host segment -- where Mike receives a bizarre phone call from a trailer trash mom who thinks he's someone else -- sets a great tone for the show, as does the invention exchange (the "Re-Comfy-Bike" and new playing cards), but the movie is such a dud that the riffs are often repetitive and rare.

The host segments inject a bit of life into the dullness.  One of them though, a deliberately non-funny stand-up routine by Tom, is SO deliberately non-funny that it ... well, it really isn't funny, mirroring in a sad way the status of the entire film.  The joke of the show hinges on movies that are so bad they're funny, but every once in a while the MST3K crew finds a movie that's so bad it's, well, it's nothing but bad.  "The Beginning of the End" comes close to that; after all, there are only so many jokes that can be made about long, ponderous silences and recycled dialogue/scenes.  Mike and the bots do the best they can here, but the end result is just so-so.  For die-hard collectors only.
Another Bert I. Gordon masterpiece, "The Beginning of the End" features a wooden Peter Graves waxing philosophic about the effects of radiation on locusts (not grasshoppers), which have grown to varying sizes and are maurauding through an oddly-mountainous Illinois, dispatching of entire towns. Graves is accompanied by a plucky female journalist and (briefly) a deaf-mute gardening assistant. Add in half-hearted special effects (shot after shot of locusts crawling up postcards of buildings) and some leery directing (an opening car sequence that takes forever to end; a lascivious locust staring into an apartment at a freshly showered woman in a towl), and you've got your typical D-Grade schlock. This is one of the first episodes from the Mike Nelson season (the back of the DVD box features Joel's friendly mug; don't be fooled), and as such, there is some hesitancy in the jokes, some ground feeling. The opening host segment -- where Mike receives a bizarre phone call from a trailer trash mom who thinks he's someone else -- sets a great tone for the show, as does the invention exchange (the "Re-Comfy-Bike" and new playing cards), but the movie is such a dud that the riffs are often repetitive and rare. The host segments inject a bit of life into the dullness. One of them though, a deliberately non-funny stand-up routine by Tom, is SO deliberately non-funny that it... well, it really isn't funny, mirroring in a sad way the status of the entire film. The joke of the show hinges on movies that are so bad they're funny, but every once in a while the MST3K crew finds a movie that's so bad it's, well, it's nothing but bad. "The Beginning of the End" comes close to that; after all, there are only so many jokes that can be made about long, ponderous silences and recycled dialogue/scenes. Mike and the bots do the best they can here, but the end result is just so-so. For die-hard collectors only.