What began as filler on an independent Minneapolis UHF station in 1988 became a nationwide comedy phenomenon. Although MST3K, as it is known, earned a reputation as one of the most biting and intelligent shows on television, it never drew a large enough audience to be a comfortable success.

The program is, in essence, just a bunch of guys throwing verbal darts at bad movies, a la Deathstalker and the Warriors From Hell and The Incredible Melting Man. But that doesn't really do the show justice. The more intricate plot, like the movies the cast watches, is preposterousness delivered in a dead-pan style.

Sometime in the "not-too-distant future," an unfortunate hired temp, Mike Nelson, is held as an outer space captive on the Satellite of Love by evil Pearl. Mikes only companions are three wacky robots (four, if you include Cambot, the camera operator), two of whom join him in his punishment lair: a movie theater where all that plays are horrible movies, one worse than the next.

Their only solace is to conquer the watery plots and see-through characters with a barrage of snippy one-liners, many of which are so obscure and high-brow that only a mastermind could appreciate it all. Satellite News, a MST3K fan Web site, reports about 700 quips per two-hour movie.

After a year on UHF, the show made its national debut on the Comedy Channel, the precursor to today's Comedy Central. As one of the networks first original programs, the show developed a small, but loyal audience. Even after several seasons, the audience was still small. A Comedy Central executive who requested anonymity said that by the end of its run, ratings had fallen to a trace.

The network tried to boost the shows ratings by requesting that the cast review more current and less obscure movies, but the requests went unheeded. "They felt very strongly about the shows premise," the executive said.

After seven years, in 1996, the network allowed MST3Ks contract to expire, and the show seemed headed to an end.

But protests from MST3Ks vocal cult following helped the show find a new home, with the Sci-Fi Channel, owned by the USA Network. Ratings initially rose, but later slumped. The show lost 12 percent of its viewer base from 1997 to 1999, according to Nielsen ratings.

Now Sci-Fi, too, is allowing the shows contract to expire, and this time even the fans seem less hopeful. "Sometimes lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for," writes Satellite News, the Web site.

Mystery Science Theater seemed to lose its place on cable as the networks which aired the show grew. New original programming on Sci-Fi and Comedy Central may have crowded out the series. Hits like South Park, on Comedy Central, draw more than 8,000 times as many viewers as MST3K did.

But it may have been more than low ratings which led to the shows demise.

The major movie distributors, tired of having their movies ruthlessly lampooned, stopped licensing to MST3K altogether, says a Sci-Fi programming executive. The show was left to survive on low-budget films, which are often painfully unwatchable, even for a show that thrives on technical glitches and bad writing.

Also, when the shows original star, Joel Hodgson, left in 1993, he may also have robbed the show of some momentum. MSTies (pronounced mistees), as diehard fans are known, have argued perennially about the quality of the shows new star, Mike J. Nelson.

The show's arcane sense of humor may also have prevented a mainstream following. Plucked from the odd corners of science, history, philosophy, and, most importantly, pop culture, the casts remarks convert the here-and-there bits of knowledge picked up in a lifetime into fuel for laughter. One reference, for example, requires an understanding of Thomas Pynchon's novel Gravitys Rainbow.

Given the history of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, it may come as no surprise to learn that the show's "finale" won't be the last new episode to air. One more will be shown on September 12 on Sci-Fi. The reason: it was held up by licensing problems.