South Park: The Streaming Wars

Yes, South Park has always been satiric. Fine. But the focus over the last few seasons has shifted from the core of Kenny, Stan, Kyle, and Cartman (and Butters) to Randy, Tegridy Farms, PC Principal, blah...blah...blah. I like good satire, but they have drained the storylines for all they are worth. Remember Jared beating a dead horse in Season 6? We are now at that point. Shift the focus back to the kids. Please....

...that I just watched South Park s**t on its parent company for 48 minutes straight, all the while poking fun at its viewers to continually show up for any content they put out, no matter what service it's on. South Park on Comedy Central is not enough...how about Paramount+ , who is personified by the not-so-subtle "Pi Pi". Most South Park is completely allegorical at this point, which hits or misses. This was a semi-hit with me, the best part is biting the hand that feeds and it just giving them more and more. This was purposefully a sub-par episode - err, "special" - that proves its own point.

It was entertaining enough to see how the plot evolved, but there weren't a lot of laughs. It just felt very light on jokes. The creators continue to focus on Randy and Tegridy weed, as well as rehashing ManBearPig, both of which have gotten tiring. If you're a South Park fan, you'll probably still enjoy it, but don't expect nonstop laughter. The "streaming" play on words had a chance to be funny, but they didn't really utilize it well. All in all, I laughed exactly twice. A far cry from South Park's prime.

I'm getting the feeling that they don't really have the infinite freedom with these Paramount+ productions to select whatever music they want to insert anywhere. That would explain some of the choices, especially the now infamous 'rapper chic going on about her puss for minutes' bit.

Otherwise i don't get the unified negativeness towards this, i was fooled into the belief that i'm not gonna smile or laugh even once, and there i am, adequately entertained, even if it is more on the clever satire side than the laugh out loud side of things.

I have no idea if South Park Studios has returned to their regular ways, or if this was done in that from-home style, but either way, the art direction was way more consistent and simply South Park, than the virus movies, which were just all over the place, possibly from the hectic working conditions. Apart from strange 1:1 inserts of the diorama style series intro as establishing shots for the town which felt out of place, it was all done right.

You could say too much Randy, but i didn't see any Randy, but this new Karen guy looks promising. Jokes aside, the boys got a good amount of scenes, nothing to nag there.

Just overall it's kinda obvious that the guys REALLY got accustomed to the 20 minutes structure, and these specials are essentially 20 minutes worth of stuff stretched to 40. That might make some people uncomfortable a bit, but it is nothing to throw 1/10's at these, that's just rude.

It's not South Park's best and it's the weakest of the television specials, so far. Cartman is usually a highlight of the show, but the subplot of him and his mom wasn't really interesting or even funny to watch. The comments on streaming services are funny and the special's way of portraying that is clever. I personally just didn't find it super funny, but still enjoyed it! If you're a fan of South Park, it's definitely worth the Paramount+ free trial.