South Park: The Streaming Wars

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.

I know a lot of people found it dull, uncreative, repetitive, and too dependent on current trends in society and pop culture. But I disagree for the most part. They successfully found a fun way to bring elements from many previous episodes, and merge them together with a mockery of modern day streaming services as the glue. They make a lot of great critical points about streaming services in fun, hilarious ways. Like how anybody can "sell content" for streaming services, how quickly they get canceled, and how the content can be garbage and yet people will still pay for it. And don't forget how competitive the streaming business has become in such a short period of time.

On top of all that, you have the usual antics from Cartman, driven by his greedy, incessant need for attention and material gain. And the boys are the focal point of one of the three main story arcs of course that play a part in the mockery of streaming services. And the story of Tegridy Weed continues. And yes, I do agree, South Park should be all about the boys and not so much about Randy and his farm, but I don't feel like he really hogs the limelight.

And to those complaining about it being oversaturated with parodies and references to current news, where have you been the last 10 seasons? That's basically what they do now, and have been doing for some time.

Overall it's pretty funny, not the best, but when you take a step back to see what the creators are doing, it certainly becomes an episode worthy of watching. On a streaming service of course.

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.

Honestly, one of the most snooze-fest South Park outings I think I've ever been on.

Feels like a script they wrote a couple of years ago with outdated jokes like "Karen" and forgot to add in any laughs.

Nothing edgy, nothing particularly witty and the so-called satire in this episode seems more geared toward TV executives than at regular joes like me watching the show.

They were doing good with the new episodes, but this "special" seemed unnecessary and pointless. These hour long shows drag out, the jokes are much less punchy because they need to be stretched out and by the 45th minute they've gone stale.

Got absolutely nothing out of the characters/boys either which is weird. I don't mind the Randy's Farm storylines but they have to land and this one didn't.

The streaming wars "analogy" just... isn't very funny? But it was nice to a-see a-Pi-Pi again, I'll give 'em that! Get back to the episodes I say.

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.