In its fourth season, Comedy Central’s South Park touches
on such sensitive issues as bigotry, pedophilia, physical handicaps, obesity,
molestation, and Charles Dickens. All are treated with absolute reverence and
handled with kid gloves. If you believe that, there’s a trio of bridges
on the east side of Manhattan available for sale right now. Cheap.
Season four of South Park featured a number of important events for
the show but very few of the episodes make it onto fan favorite lists. The wheelchair-bound,
vocabulary-impaired character of Timmy was introduced, some closure was provided
for fans of the film who wanted to know what became of the relationship between
Satan and Saddam, Mr. Garrison emerged from the closet, and most importantly,
the opening credits came into the 21st century as the boys advance to the fourth
grade.
Even with all this seemingly great stuff, none of the episodes seem to reach
the heights of the following seasons. That being said there is still a marked
improvement over seasons two and three, which suffered mainly due to the series’
creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone focusing on the production of their feature-length
film, South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut.
There are plenty of enjoyable episodes to be seen here of course. South
Park is still one of the funniest cartoons on television now, often
managing to stay more current in a single episode than The Simpsons
can manage of the course of an entire season. The two part cliffhanger, “Do
the Handicapped Go to Hell?” and “Probably,” is the best of
the bunch as the boys fear of going to Hell spurs them into making their first
confession. Simultaneously, Saddam Hussein attempts to renew his relationship
with Satan. The conclusion brings Satan into a love triangle as he is forced
to choose between his old lover and his new one while Cartman assumes the role
of evangelist as he attempts to save the souls of his friends. Of course this
season is also marked by what most consider to be the series’ worst episode
“Pip,” a fairly straightforward take on Charles Dickens’ “Great
Expectations” (until the shocking finale in which Miss Havisham reveals
her plans to exact revenge on all men for her misfortunes).
Like the previous DVD releases of South Park this set is sorely
lacking in the special features department. Disc three features a “Comedy
Central Quickies” section which has short preview material for Reno
911, Chappelle’s Show, and even South
Park. Each episode also features a ‘mini-commentary’ in
which Trey Parker and Matt Stone give some background information for the given
episode during its first act. These short commentaries are actually fairly entertaining
(not to mention interesting), so it would have been nice to see more extended
commentary tracks as well as some behind the scenes features. Perhaps they’ll
get it right in a future release. This one really doesn’t stand well next
to the recent The Simpsons: The Complete Fourth Season DVD
release, which has more relevant features than you can shake a stick at.
The fourth season of Comedy Central’s South Park can
be considered a stepping stone between the originality of the early seasons
and the increasing brilliance of the following ones. Its release to DVD is noteworthy
only for serious fans or completists, though all should take note of the glaring
lack of bonus material. Casual viewers may be better off checking out the previous
seasons or waiting for those that follow. That being said, comedy is still comedy
and South Park is still an enjoyable viewing, even in its (arguably)
weakest season.
DVD Season Four Score: B-
DVD Special Features Score: C-
Overall Score: C+
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