I am writing this entry in order to say what I think about the most recent South Park episode, and I will get to that in a bit. But first, a few words about those damn annoying video game commercials that dominate the best half hour of my week. Immediately before each South Park premier, there are full trailers, 1-2 minutes long, of brand new video games. Granted most of the games look sick, but I don’t have any modern systems (too distracting, $$$.) Hence these commercials are useless to me, as they likely are for much of the more mature audience that SP should like to cultivate. Notice I qualify the term “mature” by only using it relatively. For instance, consider the following true statement: Relative to the normal ten-year-old demographic, I have more mature taste and therefore, don’t appreciate long-assed video game trailers.
Now on to my usual task. This week’s episode, #1210, “Pandemic” was the first in a multi-part series. These multi-episode stories have become a staple of the SP diet. While most series have been funny, it is a tricky medium in which to operate. Stretching out a funny idea is one of the essential elements of SP-(think raping of Indy.”) Stretching these ideas to death can be useful, and hilarious (think woodland critters). The plot of episode 1210 contained a prime example of pushing a joke to the max, and I think it was funny. But I don’t think it ranks too high on the overall hilarity meter.
The over-bludgeoning of the Peruvian Pan-Flute band idea was typical of SP in its relevance to modern life. I live in NY and, in traveling around the city, I have encountered dozens of these groups. Back in ’99 I even bough a copy of “Sounds of the Andes.” The music was terrible, boring, repetitive, relaxing in that way that makes you want to be un-relaxed. But at least I did my part in preventing the Palelta Muerta.
The plot-stretching necessary for a multi-part series often cause over-stretching; whether this will be the case, we have yet to see. Also, as an unfortunate side-effect, these drawn-out series present me with a new difficulty in describing and critiquing the episode. At this point, It may be a little premature to just the episode by itself, since this episode was to be continued . . .-even though it didn’t say it.
Also notable in this episode was the Cloverfield-inspired camera work of Randy Marsh. In the past few seasons Randy has really come into his own as a character, and as a geologist, he recognizes his duty and documents the cataclysm. Hopefully he will have a meaningful and interesting series of events to record. Will They Defeat the Furry Death? How will Craig play into all this? Will Kenny die? Can’t wait til tonight to find out.
Posted by schublog 



