Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

South Park: The Complete Twenty-Fourth Season Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman August 26, 2022

With everything shut down, scrapped, delayed, or truncated because of the Covid pandemic, it seems only appropriate that South Park's 24th season -- all four episodes of it -- also be truncated. The season packs a minimalistic four episodes, and this Blu-ray includes only two of those four episodes: "The Pandemic Special" and "South Parq Vaccination Special." Nowhere to be found are "South Park: Post Covid" and "South Park: Post Covid: The Return of Covid." Granted, there is some confusion as to whether the latter two are "episodes" or "films." They run about an hour each and are the first two "films" for the Paramount+ network. At the same time, there is argument for their inclusion as part of season 24. The two "episodes" included in this set run about 50 minutes each. It's a confusing situation, but then again so was (and is) the Covid world that inspired it, so it all seems to "fit," whether intentionally so or not.

The Pandemic Special
Rating: 2.0/5.0

Unfortunately, in this episode, South Park really fails to do what it does best, which is to point out the absurdity of a situation through its own absurdity. Oh, there is absurdity aplenty here, whether dealing with Stan Marsh's involvement in the pandemic's origins and his supposed "cure" for Covid, how the students are forcibly "locked down" in school like it's a prison under heavily armed guard, or in the various one-off expressions of anger, frustration, uncertainty, doubt, and fear that pop up throughout town. It's basically a string of predictable South Park moments with a pandemic swing to how they play out. But it's still just the usual South Park shenanigans, this time with a mask and social distancing as part of the humor. Parker and Stone, in "The Pandemic Special" fail to bring the sort of biting satire that made the show memorable to begin with, now just happy to string together obscene images and dialogue with a little Covid connective tissue.

South ParQ Vaccination Special
Rating: 4.0/5.0

This is more of a traditional South Park episode and experience. It dives into various vaccination shenanigans but also various vaccination conspiracy theories with far reaching implications, and going beyond to explore other “hot button” conspiracy issues like QAnon and adrenochrome; Stone and Parker, or their lackeys, certainly did their homework on this one. The toilet humor is present but less obvious and overpowering. The plot is fairly interesting, and it’s written well enough to tame the temptation to litter the screen with unnecessary gags. The boys wind up stealing a trayful of vaccines in hopes of getting the faculty jabbed so they can return to school without Mr. Mackey teaching anywhere near them. The episode has some fun pitting the elderly against the young as they jostle for position for a Covid shot outside of a Walgreens distribution center.

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

Although things are a bit different elsewhere, the video quality for South Park on Blu-ray remains very consistent with its predecessors. Season 24 looks great, as expected, offering the usual array of excellent colors and crisp animated details. The Blu-ray presentation looks very good. It maintains that natural South Park texture that has the feel of construction paper. Clothing is particularly bumpy looking, and viewers can practically feel the little ridges on the television. The picture is clear and sharp across every environment, whether in the school, within various homes, and around various town exteriors. Colors, as always, leap off the screen with basic, but bright, tones that are completely typical of the show: Kenny's and Kyle's orange, Stan's dark blue and red, Cartman's light blue and red. Of course, every other tone around town is equally proficient in how it pops out of the screen. There are a few hints of aliasing here and there and a few jagged lines as well, but for the most part the picture looks great.

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

As per series standards, South Park: The Complete Twenty-Fourth Season arrives on Blu-ray with a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack. The presentation is not overly complex, but it does offer solid foundational clarity and a good bit of surround content. Musical clarity satisfies and width is very good. There is not an abundance of musical back-channel engagement, but the surrounds do carry a good it of environmental fill, especially as things tend to get a bit rowdier during various vaccine riots and fights between groups in the vaccine episode. In "The Pandemic Special," Randy Marsh's microphone reverb expertly floats around the stage in the opening moments as he pitches his quarantine weed special bargain. Pinpoint immersion and flawlessly realistic sound elements are not this track's focus. Rather, it's about setting the quasi-serious, quasi-comical scene (in "South ParQ Vaccination Special" in particular) to good, balanced effect. Dialogue is, unsurprisingly, the main audio mover here. Its presentation is flawless, boasting solid foundational front center placement and good prioritization that allows the familiarly distinctive voices to come through as well as can be expected.

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

This Blu-ray release of South Park: The Complete Twenty-Fourth Season contains no supplemental content. These sets have generally never been huge with extras, but it's a shame that there's nothing here, not even the series staple "mini commentaries." This release is actually fairly different than the others. The packaging has been changed to a simple Amaray case. It's also a single disc set. There is at least inner print artwork. Also, no DVD or digital copies are included with purchase. This release does not ship with a slipcover.

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

This is a weird release, but it's been a weird time. The two (yes, just two, albeit extended) episodes are foundationally similar in that they are born of the Covid pandemic, but they are diametrically opposed in tone. The first is nothing but poor taste humor with little care for narrative structure, while the second is a more biting and traditionally satirical South Park episode that certainly has its share of gross-out and poor-taste humor and language, but it's nestled into the content rather than standing front-and-center in front of it. The featureless single disc Blu-ray offers the expectedly good video and audio presentation which are perfectly in-line with series expectations for Blu-ray. For fans only.