South Park: The China Probrem
South Park’s long awaited mid-season premiere was broadcast last night in an episode entitled “The China Probrem” (wiki/spoiler). I hope to watch it tonight and comment on it later, but people expected this one to be on-par with the Imaginationland episodes.
I can only hope that it is. See my unfortunate review below.
From South Park Studios:
- Imaginationland (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3)
- The China Probrem
Review (spoilers):
The episode wasn’t as epic as I believed, so I’m sorry if a lot of expectations were broken along with mine. The episode didn’t bring anything new to light and it never built past the introduction ideas.
You have to compare this episode with Free Hat because it previously showed Lucas & Spielberg with Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, as well as the editing of all movies. Not to mention, “Free Hat” had a lot more laughable moments with Hat McCullough, Lucas bringing Spielberg to the dark side, the fresh island song, and Tweek’s uncertainty about the whole deal. The moral cut-scene of Free Hat describes how movies should be left in their purist form and not butchered for money.
Probrem had none of this. It’s side plot of Chinese takeover as an introduction, which was humorous to see the imitation of the Olympic opening drum ceremony. The attempts at humor really halts progression of the storyline, as 8+ scenes are given to groins being shot and recalling movie-based rape scenes. The moral of Probrem was left to the Cartman side plot, and how we need to accept China and not lose dignity. Cartman never really resolves this problem before giving us his resolution, he just gets tired of Butters poor aim. China’s real emergence was never shown (which made it a subplot since nothing was built upon)and we are not given a method for accepting.
I only hope the next episodes improve, as the mid-season break leaves expetations high to all the viewers. Last season’s mid-premiere, Le Petit Tourette, was what we needed after a break.