To hear Joel Hodgson describe his past month, you’d think he was participating in an illegal, no-holds barred version of Fear Factor and not organizing a fundraising campaign to revive one of the classic cult TV shows of the 1990s.

“It’s kinda like living on a boat that’s on fire” or “It’s kinda like trying to change a tire while the car is still moving” are the ways he characterizes the project that has consumed nearly 30 days of his life so far.

That frantic, harried imagery runs counter to the easygoing demeanor Hodgson displayed for years as the space-marooned host of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a series that had him watching—and humorously riffing on—horrible movies with his robotic pals, Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot. Since early November, Hodgson, who also created the show, has been spearheading a Kickstarter campaign to fund original episodes for a new, 21st-century version of the cable TV series.

The campaign’s final day is Friday, and for that, Hodgson draws on another frenzied comparison to illustrate what it’s been like during the fund drive’s final hours.

“It’s kinda like football,” Hodgson tells Upvoted. “[The campaign] is in the red zone between the 20 yard line and the goalpost. It’s where everything happens. The defense is going to get stronger, the offense is going to work harder, because when you’re in that red zone you have a chance to score.”

If Friday is the red zone, then that night’s live-streaming Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Final Countdown telethon that Hodgson is hosting from Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles will hopefully be the equivalent of a touchdown celebration dance. As of Tuesday night, the Bring Back MST3K campaign had raised more than $4 million, a total that guarantees at least six new episodes.

Friday’s broadcast, which airs at 5 PM PST and can be streamed from the Kickstarter page and the official Mystery Science Theater 3000 YouTube page, will feature the new MST3K cast—Jonah Ray as the show’s host and Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt as the mad scientists—as well as guest appearances from Community creator Dan Harmon, comedian Dana Gould, and other celebrities. The event also will be an effort to push the campaign to $5.5 million, an amount that will ensure a 12-episode season.

“It’s going to be a pretty exciting day,” Hodgson shares. “You can’t control stuff like that, you can only kinda get it in the neighborhood of what can happen, so that’s kinda the goal right now.”

Although the Kickstarter campaign has been a month-long experience filled with media interviews, text and video updates, and even a Reddit Ask Me Anything session, Hodgson’s journey to relaunch MST3K began about seven years ago when he began publicly floating the idea of a revival. During that time, he also started putting some of the logistic pieces needed for a reboot in place—such as securing the rights to the series—and talked with fans to get at the heart of their deep affection for this show that he originally created in the late 1980s at a Minneapolis TV station.

“I’m been pretty happy about how it’s been going so far, and it’s been fascinating to see how people feel about it, what they want, and what they love and what they like about it,” he said.

“For some reason, we were ahead of our time, and now we’re kinda right on time, so I think it has a chance to be more famous. Now it’s not outrageous for a family to sit down and watch a show like ‘Mystery Science Theater.'”

After that, Hodgson used the calm before the storm a Mystery Science Theater revival would generate to get his creative juices flowing and bounce ideas around in his own head about what he wanted the new series to be.

“I had a long time to think about it, and a long time to be alone with it,” Hodgson says about his process of developing this new iteration of the show. “I knew once we started there would be no time to do creative work, and I’m not the kind of person that thrives on creating when there’s tension. I like to create when I’m relaxed and in a good mood.”

One of the big challenges was figuring out how to continue MST3K in a way that evolved it instead of just rehashing it. That’s why there’s a new cast and new voices for the bots (Baron Vaughn will play Tom Servo, and Hampton Yount is Crow).

At the same time, Hodgson wanted a series that remembered and respected its history—as well as its loyal and passionate fans, known as MSTies. He’s hinted that familiar faces from the original series could come back in cameos, although no one has been confirmed. Hodgson also says he wants to take cues from successful franchises like Saturday Night Live, James Bond, and Doctor Who, TV and film series that have changed over the years without rejecting their rich legacies.

“My struggle is more like this middle ground where you want to respect the old and the story,” he says. “People are going, ‘Is this like a ground floor reboot? Are you going to forget the history of the show?’ And I go, ‘No. It’s just like … the next season of Mystery Science Theater.

“I think part of it is you have to do two things. You have to listen, but also you have to kinda lead, and you have to go, this is what I need to have happen, and this is my opinion on how to make a Mystery Science Theater that can travel through time.”

Hodgson also is cognizant of the cultural impact MST3K had over its 11-year run split between Comedy Central and the SciFi Channel. It’s not hyperbole to say that the series helped lay the foundation for how an entire generation interacts online today. The movie riffing that Hodgson and his bots did feels like a lo-fi version of hanging out on Twitter to tweet snarky comments during live events. The show’s DIY spirit and aesthetic—something Hodgson said will continue with the relaunch—is celebrated throughout the internet. Even the dense barrage of jokes brimming over with obscure pop culture references found in a single MST3K episode resembles many of the curated, commentary-heavy blogs, Tumblr feeds, and websites that people spend their downtime perusing today.

“It’s not like I saw the Internet coming or anything. It’s just a happy accident,” Hodgson says. “I was just trying to be funny, yknow, and I thought this would be a cool idea. … For some reason, we were ahead of our time, and now we’re kinda right on time, so I think it has a chance to be more famous. Now it’s not outrageous for a family to sit down and watch a show like Mystery Science Theater.”

No matter what the final tally of the Kickstarter campaign is, Hodgson and a new Mystery Science Theater crew will be on the clock for new episodes as of 12:01 AM, Saturday, Dec. 12. Whether it will be six, nine, or a full order of 12 remains to be seen.

“I’m been pretty happy about how it’s been going so far, and it’s been fascinating to see how people feel about it, what they want, and what they love and what they like about it.”

In fact, the first cinematic turd that the new cast and writers get to polish will arrive Monday. But don’t expect Hodgson to reveal what film titles the new series has set its comedic sights on.

“I actually keep them a secret,” he explains. “We never billboarded the movies that we ran on Mystery Science Theater, and there’s a reason for that. To me, it kinda works like the ‘haunted house theory,’ where watching Mystery Science Theater should kinda be like going into a haunted house on the edge of town with some funny friends. And if you see pictures of the inside of the house, it’s not as scary. So I’ve been keeping it a secret.”

While the movies will start rolling in next week, Hodgson’s next step will be to secure a place to broadcast or stream the new episodes. Work on producing the series will officially begin at 10 a.m. Jan. 4, and Hodgson said that preliminary writing will probably start around Jan. 18. And it’s those future dates—when the MST3K creator gets to see a crop of fresh talent that was raised on the series help forge a new vision for the series—that Hodgson is looking forward to.

“I kinda look at it like pro baseball,” he says, using another energetic analogy. “Everybody loves baseball, everybody loves to play baseball, but sometimes you just want to watch somebody else do it. … All the people getting involved really love Mystery Science Theater, so it’s really fun for them. That’s really great. That’s been a really cool thing for me.”

As exciting as that creative work will be, it can wait until January. Hodgson has one other thing he wants to do once this 30-day, MST3K Kickstarter marathon ends, and there are no more fiery boats left to live on or moving cars with flat tires to change.

“I’m going take a break, too, man. I’m going to take it easy after this for a while.”