Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

South Park: The Complete Nineteenth Season Blu-ray Movie Review

Truth in advertising: season nineteen delivers.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman September 4, 2016

Crude-talking child cartoon characters might be the broadest face of South Park, but Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have never just settled for gutter comedy, at least not usually. No, South Park has always been much more than colorful environments and colorful language. It's been on the cutting-edge of social deconstruction, taking aim sometimes directly, sometimes obliquely, at the issue of the day, and in a timely manner at that. Everything and everyone has been, is, and will be fair game. The show doesn't usually take sides, employing an eagerness to rip to the heart of modern culture and address the bad and the ugly of the world in which it airs head-on, almost always comically and usually absurdly. Season nineteen is no different, except that it is. It's different in that it takes a single issue -- political correctness run amok -- and builds an entire ten-episode season around it. It lambasts modern culture, particularly language and those who admonish it's supposed misuse, and expands its field of view to go after many of the finer points that have come to define the modern way of life. It's brilliant television, bold in its bluntness and playing almost like a cathartic experience for Parker and Stone as they take their show to a place it's been before, but that here goes harder, heavier, and longer than any to come before it.

To the Yelp reviewer go the spoils...and the pounds, apparently.

The season-long, and mostly focused, arc makes this South Park at the top of its game, and a novelty in its history for layout. The tackling of real-world controversy and bending it to the seemingly crazy, but actually very balanced and understanding, whims of Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, is the most familiar aspect the season has on offer. Season nineteen is a revelation for the show, an honest single-play arc that builds on previous episode narratives but still manages to, through the course of the season, introduce, explore, and comment on any number of topics that they've finely interwoven into the show. The season builds towards a fun, sort of hammy, overly-dramatized Hollywood-like styling in its last episodes which enhance the sense of absurdity but drive home several of the finer points in the much bigger picture of Parker and Stone's most triumphant take on modern society so far.

Season nineteen is comprised of the following episodes:

Disc One:

• Stunning and Brave: Principal Victoria has been replaced by a musclebound progressive who goes by, simply, "PC Principal." He believes the school is "lost in a time warp" and his mission is to transform South Park -- the school and the town -- into a progressive and politically correct haven. Few take the new direction well, particularly when PC Principal and his entirely white frat boy-like entourage turn to violence to instill their way. Will the town -- including a beaten and dejected Cartman -- rebel or come around to accepting the new, "ultra-tolerant" world order?
• Where My Country Gone?: Mr. Garrison has become enraged at illegal immigration, particularly the disruptive Canadians in his class. He finally takes matters into his own hands and becomes a Donald Trump-inspired candidate who promotes a rather unique way of dealing with the issue.
• The City Part of Town: Thanks to Garrison's actions, the town's name has been run through the mud. Randy proposes a solution that will instantly revitalize South Park and bring it legitimacy: bring in a Whole Foods store. It'll validate South Park's PC status and serve as the centerpiece of a revitalization effort, which is planned to be built around Kenny's house. It attracts an upscale crowd, but Mr. Kim, owner of City Wok, isn't happy.
• You're Not Yelping: Gerald and Randy eat at one of the new restaurants that the Whole Foods store has brought in. They're told there's a 30 minute wait, but Gerald announces that he's a Yelp reviewer. That means table for two, straight away. Cartman reviews, too, and he uses his status to get what he wants, when he wants it, for free. But when it becomes clear that everyone's a critic, the restaurants rebel and force the reviewers out, regardless of what sort of reviews they write. It doesn't take long for the critics, rallied by Cartman, to strike back, beginning a war the town cannot afford.
• Safe Space: Cartman is crying in front of PC Principal. He's been ridiculed for his weight -- "fat shamed" -- after posting pictures of his "ripped" body on social media. Various students are brought in with orders to filter Cartman's social accounts and make sure he's not a victim of digital body shaming, but they see through the tears and face a lengthy detention sentence instead. Finally, Butters is talked into accepting the task, a decision which will come back to haunt him. Meanwhile, Randy becomes increasingly frustrated by repeated efforts to make him donate money to hungry children at the Whole Foods checkout lane.

Disc Two:

• Tweek X Craig: Tweek and Craig find themselves as the subject of homosexual Asian art at school. Soon, everyone assumes Tweek and Craig are indeed an item, and the town -- even their parents -- rally around them. The two must come up with a plan to lose the label. Meanwhile, Cartman's Cupid-self tries to talk him into a homosexual relationship with...himself.
• Naughty Ninjas: When PC Principal calls in the police to handle an unruly student at the school gym, Barbrady accidentally shoots a child -- and a Latino child at that -- and he's fired from the force and forcibly removed from the town. Now, when the police are called to duty, they refuse help, fearing being fired and angered that they can no longer beat up minorities. Soon, the entire town is rallying against the police, homeless people pile up in front of Whole Foods, and the boys become ninjas. Only one man can save the day, or maybe not, or perhaps learn a shocking secret about South Park's sudden reinvention into a supposed PC haven.
• Sponsored Content: Jimmy, editor of the school newspaper, is derided, as politely as possible thanks to his disability, by PC Principal for allowing the use of the world "retarded" in an op-ed written by a first grader. He's no longer allowed to distribute the paper in school without running each issue by PC, so he takes to publishing his own paper, ad-free, and distributing it on the street. In it, he calls out PC Principal's new policy. Jimmy also becomes privy to knowledge that there may be something more serious happening to South Park than an invasion of political correctness, and that he may be the key to saving the town.
• Truth and Advertising: The mystery continues to unfold as Jimmy works a source and a familiar face returns to town. Meanwhile, the boys attempt to search out the truth on PC Principal but find themselves bombarded with, and distracted by, advertisements.
• PC Principal Final Justice: Secrets are revealed as the truth about who -- what -- is behind South Park's transformation into a PC paradise is revealed.

South Park: The Complete Nineteenth Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

South Park: The Complete Nineteenth Season delivers another striking 1080p presentation from Paramount/Comedy Central. As with previous seasons, the HD imagery serves the show very well. Colors are the most immediately evident beneficiary, splashing vibrant, if not a bit monochromatic, primaries all over the screen. Reds, blues, greens, yellows, oranges, the entire palette is alive with healthy saturation and pop, particularly on clothes but also on various background pieces inside and outside as well. Image clarity is superb. Animated lines are smooth with only very minor and extremely intermittent jaggies. The construction paper-like texturing is a sight to behold; the Blu-ray offers a very tangible surface layer with obvious bumps and ridges that high definition captures with amazing precision. The only real faults in the image, and minor ones at that, come in the form of a touch of aliasing here and there and occasional bursts of banding that appears on flatter background surfaces, like walls. Otherwise, this is a technically proficient and visually agreeable image that will delight fans and please videophiles.

South Park: The Complete Nineteenth Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

South Park: The Complete Nineteenth Season features a good all-around performer in its Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Opening title music is appropriately lively, with good spread and stage saturation, including a healthy low end and a nicely integrated surround support. Music in all forms -- soft and aggressive alike -- during the ten-episode run enjoys good clarity and depth of stage penetration, though it, and most everything else in the track, for that matter, could stand a bit more of a forceful, slightly more throaty, delivery. It comes across as a little timid, but not lacking in usage of all channels at its disposal. Whether nice dialogue reverberation at a few locations where microphone meets cavernous room, parties at a frat house, shootouts, or general chaos, there's a nice balance between clarity of delivery and whole-stage saturation, though again the track could stand a little more raw power. Overall, however, this is a good listen that compliments the show very well.

South Park: The Complete Nineteenth Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

South Park: The Complete Nineteenth Season contains most all bonuses on disc one. Disc two contains only additional "#Socialcommentary" for each episode.

• Deleted Scenes (1080p, TrueHD 5.1, 5:51 total runtime): Scenes from "Stunning and Brave," "Where My Country Gone?," "You're Not Yelping," "Safe Space," "Naughty Ninjas," and "Truth and Advertising."
• Season Commentary (1080p, 26:50): Rather than tracks on each episode, this is simply pieces of each episode thrown together, making, effectively, a 27-minute season commentary track.
• South Park: The Fractured But Whole E3 2016 Game Trailer (1080p, DD 2.0, 2:12): A quick peek at the game coming to PS4 and Xbox One on December 6, 2016.
• #Socialcommentary: On-screen tweets shed some 140 character insights into each episode.

South Park: The Complete Nineteenth Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

South Park never gets old. It's brilliant television that will tickle the fancy of those who get its timely sense of humor, sharp social and political commentary, and accept its vulgarity as a means to a very grounded end. The nineteenth season delivers one of the best South Park experiences yet, featuring a running, season-long narrative arc that builds a plot towards a dramatically absurd but thematically relevant conclusion. That's the heart of the show, and nowhere is it embodied better than it is in this ten-episode run. This Paramount/Comedy Central Blu-ray release features excellent video, strong lossy audio, and the usual smattering of South Park extras. Very highly recommended.