South Park: The Complete Twenty-Third Season Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

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

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.

• Mexican Joker: Kyle falls victim to the family-separation policy when Cartman tells ICE that the Broflovskis are illegal immigrants. Kyle tries to win his freedom by warning the Border Agents that their cruelty may be the origin story for a Mexican Joker. Back in South Park, Tegridy Farms is struggling, creating a rift between Randy and Towelie.
• Band in China: In his relentless pursuit of profits, Randy has a unique idea to introduce Tegridy Farms to the massive market in China. He’s quickly locked away in a Chinese Detention Center. Back home, Stan’s new death metal band, Crimson Dawn, gets a biopic.
• Shots!!!: In this historic 300th episode of South Park, Cartman faces expulsion from school when it’s discovered that he has never been vaccinated. Despite many attempts, Cartman has the almost animalistic ability to escape the doctor’s needle. A professional is brought in, and it’s game-on between the pig-catcher and the anti-vaxxers.
• Let Them Eat Goo: Randy’s partnership with China is over, and he’s found a new way to make money from Tegridy Farms. Jumping on the success of plant-based alternatives, Tegridy Burger is born. Cartman is so outraged at the thought of a healthy alternative, in his school lunch, and gives himself a heart attack.
• Tegridy Farms Halloween Special: On a visit to the local museum, Butters awakens an Egyptian Mummy and brings about an ancient love curse. Randy has to face that his daughter has a drug problem; she hates marijuana. Shelley tries to sabotage Tegridy Farm’s Halloween Special but instead, contaminates the new batch of weed and sets off a zombie-infested nightmare.

• Season Finale: Randy has alienated everyone in South Park, including his own family. When he’s arrested for committing crimes that were attributed to “Mexican Joker,” no one will help him. He finally has to appeal to the President for some legal aid.
• Board Girls: When Vice Principal Strong Woman loses an athletic competition to a surprising new competitor, she and PC Principal are thrown into an emotional tailspin. They have to question how truly woke they really are. Cartman objects when the school starts admitting girls into its Board Game Club.
• Turd Burglars: Sheila Broflovski feels better than ever after receiving a fecal transplant. Soon, many of the women in town want some of Kyle’s mom’s magical poop. Stan, Cartman, and Kenny see a way to get their hands on the latest video game “Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.”
• Basic Cable: The new girl at school has diabetes, and Scott Malkinson assumes that the two of them must be soulmates. Scott’s plan to win her love is to invite her over to watch “The Mandalorian” at his house. The problem is his dad, who works for the local cable company, refuses to pay for Disney+!
• Christmas Snow: It’s Christmastime in South Park, but things are not so merry now that a city ordinance has been put in place banning alcohol during the holidays. Since no one wants to face the holidays sober, the town reaches out to Randy to come up with a Christmas Special.

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

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 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

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.

• Concept Art (1080p, Disc One): Using the remote keys, viewers can peruse season-specific artwork in various styles and levels of completion. There are about 25 pages of images in total, all with numerous pieces of art on display.
• #Socialcommentary (Discs One and Two): On-screen tweets shed some insight into each episode.

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

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.