8.2 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
The misadventures of four irreverent grade-schoolers in the quiet, dysfunctional town of South Park, Colorado.
Starring: Matt Stone, Trey Parker, Isaac Hayes, Mona Marshall, April Stewart (I)Comedy | 100% |
Animation | 76% |
Dark humor | 47% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1, 1.33:1
English: Dolby TrueHD 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 2.0
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
The ever relevant, and irreverent, South Park returns for its 10-episode 23rd season. Along with celebrating the series' 300th episode, the season sees series Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone in classic mode, delivering one of the heartier, and raunchier, seasons yet, pushing the envelope while holding fast and true to the essential South Park beats that have come to define the show, endear it to fans, and keep it on the air for now well into its third decade. As always, the season tackles timely topics that range from popular culture to politics, including film and video games, illegal immigration, trans topics, drugs, and Disney+. It's a packed season to say the least, one of the most vulgar but well-rounded yet.
South Park: The Complete Twenty-Third Season largely looks terrific on Blu-ray. The presentation is essentially unchanged and identical to recent season outputs, such as season 22, boasting the same essential qualities of sharpness, native elemental clarity, and color output. The familiar aesthetics are on full display here in the construction of characters and environments, holding fast to practically impeccable clarity and definition. However, there are a few trouble points along the way. Banding occasionally plagues backgrounds, often not to shot- and scene-debilitating excess but enough to take notice. Meanwhile, rare examples of jagged edges can be seen here and there. Look at the 1:22 mark of "Season Finale;" the peak of a red and black barn clearly has that undesirable "stair step" appearance, as do many of the lines along its façade. There are also trace banding elements seen in the sky, and in the following shot, depicting Randy entering the City Council room, there's obviously busy macroblocking along the red carpet floor. These sorts of issues are not rare, but they are not so frequent or intense to damage the general visual flow. Colors are typically brilliant, even as they're largely lacking nuance and variance within the same tone. Larger swaths tend to define basic primaries like clothes, skies, green fields, school hallways, and the like. It's vibrant, cheerful, typical of the South Park experience.
South Park: The Complete Twenty-Third Season features the series staple Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack. The quality is very good. Music spreads across the front with impressive width and vigor, particularly the opening title sequence, which has some variance to lyrics and beat throughout the season. It's energetic, expressive, and nicely detailed no matter the style or instrumental engagement. Atmospherics are impressively engaging, too, offering fine location specifics and a pleasing sense of environmental immersion, spread along the front and folding naturally and with balanced volume back into the rears. There are good occasions of spacial reverb, such as when PC Principal, and the vice principal, address the student body towards the beginning of "Board Girls." Dialogue is clear and well prioritized, grounded in the center save for some of those aforementioned examples of deliberate spacial engagement.
South Park: The Complete Twenty-Third Season contains bonuses on both discs. No DVD or digital copies are included. This release ships in
the typical South Park DigiPak/SlipBox packaging.
South Park is always on the cutting edge of relevancy, and season 23 certainly has its share of timely issue episodes that, like so many from seasons past, are sure to remain relevant years from now because Parker and Stone tackle them with biting humor and no-holds-barred insight in classic South Park fashion. With the world in a state of absolute upheaval since season 23 aired, it will be interesting to see what season 24 has in store; there's certainly going to be no shortage of material for Parker and Stone to draw from going forward. South Park: The Complete Twenty-Third Season's Blu-ray release is typical of recent output in terms of video and audio presentations as well as supplementary content. Recommended.
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