Not my auction but I came across it and I figured someone here wouldn't mind knowing about it (and reading the funny certificate of authenticity):

https://www.ebay.com/itm/164214696757?ViewItem=&item=164214696757

I watched it and I gather the following:

Jonah is out (and has been since before the last live tour?).  Emily is his replacement.

Gypsy is out, by that name and body.  She has a new, smaller puppet and now goes by the name GPC (performed by Yvonne Freese).

Baron Vaughn is out as the voice of Tom Servo, replaced by Conor McGiffin.

Hampton Yount is out as the voice of Crow, replaced by Nate Begle.

Maybe none of this is news for anyone who went to the Circus live show.  But it was all a little unsettling for me.  Almost nothing remains of what we watched on Netflix.

As for the dynamic between the cast, it was difficult to gauge.  There was very little new material in the riff-on-top-of-the-riff.  Maybe 1-2 new riffs per minute on average.  I didn't notice any new riffs that were funnier than the original material they were riffing on.  Half of the new lines were commentary on the old lines, not new jokes.  E.g., there was a Donald Trump joke in the original riffing and Emily noted that the joke held up over time ("and space!"--GPC), etc.

I will say that to him if I ever see him again.  Last time he came to Cleveland I wore my neon green lab coat.  He liked it and spent a while talking to me.  This was after the revival was announced but before the shows were made.  He lamented that it "wasn't the same show" and that he had already made up his mind that he wouldn't be having anything to do with it.

It's rare that we get an official image of Crow's legs, but here's a new one.  Is there anything to be learned by this art?

...bot builders might get a smile from this T-shirt...

https://www.zenmonkeystudios.com/products/mst3k-crows-blueprints

The "Netflix pitch" video is fairly close up on the new bots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Obv_0VpimPc

I spent a lot of time looking into Crow's mouth to try to figure out how the new RC actuation mechanism works.  The mouth is attached by a stainless steel metal hinge (a Home Depot type part) and a single-piston actuator appears to be hot-glued inside the right side (from Crow's perspective) of the mouth.  It seems like Crow's neck still has the "trach ring" for the mouth actuation string but no string anymore.  It seems like the new mouth is not as high bandwidth as the old string-driven mouth so the verisimilitude of the mouth movement isn't as convincing as old Crow, but the mouth seems to move a lot more solidly and stably.

There are also good shots of Crow's arms.

While watching "The Return" episodes I noticed these names in the credits:

crow puppeteers
GRANT BACIOCCO
CARLA RUDY
HAMPTON YOUNT

tom servo puppeteers
RUSS WALKO
ERIK KUSKA
BARON VAUGHN

So are Baron Vaughn and Hampton Yount no longer the primary puppeteers for their respective bots?  Didn't Trace Beaulieu and Bill Corbett always puppeteer Crow during their respective turns on the show?  Didn't J. Elvis Weinstein and Kevin Murphy always puppeteer Tom Servo during their respective runs?

The only other puppetry credit I can find on the old series is for Patrick Brantseg ("technical puppetry," 1992-1999), who was also the voice of Gypsy.

I can see why Baron and Hampton might need some occasional help, but the credits make it seem like somebody else is doing the puppeteering now--perhaps during the theater segments?

I have noticed that Crow's mouth just sort of flaps randomly when he's speaking in the theater.  Crow's mouth is not synced to his voice at all.  So now I'm wondering if the riff portions aren't done like they used to be, but instead have all the riffs dubbed in in post.  It would serve to explain why the mouth motions of Crow appear entirely divorced from the speech.