"People seemed to laugh a lot more in those days."
Similar to KTMA's "Deathflight SST" and "The Last Chase" episodes, this feature is a dimly-lit made-for-TV movie filmed in the 70s. Our hero is an astronaut who gets lost and ends up on a mirror image Earth called "Terra" that is on the opposite side of the sun.
This planet is led by a single worldwide government that is vague and menacing. This government, called the "Perfect Order" keeps things orderly by means of strange radio broadcasts and "Ward E", a place where malcontents and other threats to the Perfect Order are lobotomized.
As Crow summarizes: It's the Fugitive meets Logan's Run.
Episode 312 Gamera vs. Guiron also featured the plot twist of a twin planet called Terra orbiting 180° opposite the Earth. The premise is flawed since the Earth's orbit is not a perfect circle. Any twin planet would appear in the sky at times during the year, and would have been observed after sunset by ancient astronomers.
Though not explicitly mentioned in the film, Episode 509 Outlaw is also set on a planet orbiting opposite the Earth, though in this case the planet is named Gor.
The opening credits' video contains footage from the movie Prisoners of the Lost Universe, which was later riffed by Rifftrax in 2012.
Score composer Richard Markowitz did the music for The Magic Sword.
Prologue: Joel turns the Bots into a shooting gallery.
Invention Exchange (Segment One): The SOL gang and the Mads go back and forth with variations of the old "BANG!" flag gun, like an Uzi, dynamite, nunchucks and bowie knife.
Segment Two: The Bots fight over their "Topper's TV Trading Cards".
The Bots fight over their "Topper's TV Trading Cards"
Segment Three: Tom makes cookies, Crow has a nightmare, and they discuss Ward E.
Segment Four: Evil mastermind Joel and his hench-Bots plots to destroy all of television's famous detectives.
Segment Five: Joel and Crow try to sell Stranded in Space to movie mogul Tom, and the Mads ponder the similarities between mad science and show business.
Crow has nightmares while Servo makes cookies
Stinger: Stryker gets slapped.
Trivia
Joel explains the premise of the series, this time adding some details we’ve never heard before, nor will ever hear again. He says, “As you can tell by the opening the Mads made…” and also says the Mads “sell the results to cable TV.”
The MST3K version of the film, like Pod People before it, has credits with scenes from a completely unrelated movie. The closing credits were similarly redressed. The real opening credits take place with our hero's ship in space as a background, while the proper closing credits come up over a freezeframe of Stryker on the beach where he winds up at the end of the movie.
Bob King came in to do audio for this episode and only this episode.
Shrinky Dinks were a Milton Bradley toy popular in the 70s and 80s.
"Uh-oh, three on a transporter..."
A popular superstition about "three on a match" holds that the third person to light his cigarette from the same lit match as two other people is destined for bad luck, or even death.
"My name is Luka, I live on the second floor"
A reference to the song Luka by Suzanne Vega about a victim of child abuse, although it is frequently interpreted as referring to spousal abuse.
"Toward Stephen Cannell's house"
Stephen Cannell was the producer of a number of 70s dramas, most notably "The Rockford Files", "Quincy ME", "The A-Team", "Baretta", "Hardcastle and McCormick", etc. The joke is in keeping with the episode's repeated references to 70s TV shows of the Quinn Martin variety.File:MST3K 305 Promo
