Two decades in and that sleepy little mountain town in Colorado continues to be an epochal epicenter of irreverent societal commentary. Paramount packaged all ten episodes of 2016's season with some worthwhile extras that help prop up a comparatively tepid Park run.
Attempting to “member” twenty years worth of anything is a tall task, irrespective of its significance and impact. As I’ve attested in past SP reviews, this show has been a favorite of mine since its debut. Even still, the practice of recalling each year’s group of chapters individually and in proper order is a personal act in futility. Sure, off the top of my head I recall “Cartman Gets an Anal Probe” was the first instance to appear on Comedy Central. Without Wikipedia’s intervention, I couldn’t tell you the episode to follow. The brilliance of Park comes to me in moments, big and small. From a diminutive detail like the It’s A Wonderful Life parody from the Charles Manson Christmas special to major, multi step efforts the ilk of Imaginationland or Black Friday, those are the mental indentions that create my joyous tether to the work Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s studio produces. 2015 saw a significant change in prescribed storytelling practices of the show. While it had flirted with going against the complete episodic reset pattern of traditional sitcom rhythm before, the “PC” season really connected segments together from week to week. Although, there were intervals sprinkled about that could stand on their own as a singular stint. Constant narrative threads were woven throughout while individual episodes still felt “fleshed out.” The twentieth iteration goes full on weave. Every character choice, event, and development is extensively interconnected across the 220 minute runtime.
Ep. 2001, entitled “Member Berries,” introduces the narrative kernel of troll; the town is harboring two corrosively toxic elements. First are the member berries, a natural delectation that reminisce about tidbits from the 40-somethings’ youthful era like the original Star Wars trilogy and when the country had a lower Hispanic population. The second factor is an Internet antagonist known by their online handle skankhunt42, who quickly becomes adroit in the repugnant negative commenting dark arts and begins to attract the attention of well deserved opponents and a handful of adoring “fans.” Also in play is Mr. Garrison, and amazingly his bid to become the next President of the United States is not only alive, but thriving. And despite his best efforts to derail is own campaign, he can seemingly do no wrong in the hearts and minds of his aging constituency. These main fulcrums gather momentum as the season goes along, reaching a resolution within the last entry.
Usually, this would be the point in which I’d select my favorite episodes and offer short synopses to better illuminate my explication of the jokes at hand. This time that feels disingenuous, mainly because of the constant referential writing. If I were to isolate chapters and extrapolate what I found humorous, I would be “spoiling” major plot points and also be compelled to flesh out all of the details related to said happening for it to make sense. That’d turn this from a review of a box set to a full blown op ed rife with reveals in an effort to support my arguments. An ancillary reason for refraining from episodic highlighting is that I didn’t feel this season was one of the better exhibitions in the show’s lineage. In lieu of crafting this ten step tale, a noticeable portion of microcosmic comedy is missing. While watching “live” and on disc for the purposes of this post, there were not instances of unfettered laughter or hysterical response. Taken as a whole, I’m able to extract rhetorical constructions I appreciated such as the fiendishly cute idiosyncrasies of member berries and the evolution of Garrison’s Donald Trump-y disposition. But there weren’t conglomerates of these or other elements in notable number within any individual episodes. In effect, this makes the set less funny than most.
Fortunately, the release is buttressed by solid quality and good extras. Picture and sound are crystal as usual. Full 1080 resolution makes the animation pop and colors vibrant, despite the “crude” art styling with which the show is known. Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Stereo sound great and offer much appreciated flexibility accorded one’s speaker setup. Special Features have what has become normal for SP releases in the form of Season Commentary, where Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone spend some time detailing their approach to writing and planning the run, #SocialCommentary, that intersperse factoids on-screen during the episode, and batch of deleted scenes. To sweeten the bonuses, an hour long segment of Matt and Trey’s interview with Chris Hardwick at 2016 San Diego Comic Con is included. Let alone an awesome exposé in and of itself, I think the selection also reveals their mindset going into production of the season at hand. In the latter part of the panel, an inquiry was raised by a member of the audience in which they ask about the possibility of a second movie. In response, Trey refers to the show as a “hungry baby,” and with television censor “standards” much different now than when Bigger, Longer, and Uncut was released in 1999, they would not intentionally stifle an idea for the show in order to craft a screen play.
For me, that answer pointed to the very problem at the heart of season 20: it’s too long. The idea of wanting to follow in the current “binge” writing culture of successful television shows today is admirable, but I think the execution threw out that hungry baby with the comedic bath water. That’s not to say the run is completely devoid of humor, it isn’t. There are plenty of little quote worthy lines and lasting character images that can be pulled. The problem is that the show’s granular nature in the previous nineteen years is suffused in absolution by gradual plot development. A perhaps unintended, but nevertheless real, consequence of this is a substantial loss in frenetic week-to-week energy. Had the season been cut to six or seven episodes to accommodate the story construction, I believe it would have worked much better. As it is, Comedy Central (read: Viacom) ordered ten chapters. And since business is business, South Park Studios was obliged to create said amount. I am in no way, shape, or form giving up on the show or marking this the end of Park‘s viability as a successful commodity. Season 19 was one of the best in series’ history, and with their “in the moment” approach to writing, there’s nothing stopping 21 from being a classic. Although a compromise among the old and new writing processes might help in that aspiration.
