The NY Times TV critic has a column today about religion, parables and morality in South Park. Two weeks ago, the South Park episode was a wonderful send-up of Mel Gibson's S&M Jesus movie, where Stan ends up telling fans of that movie: "If you want to be Christian, that's cool, but you should follow what Jesus taught instead of how he got killed. Focusing on how he got killed is what people did in the Dark Ages, and it ends up with really bad results"; last week, they had an episode based on Michael Jackson as a father (and a side plot of getting set to frame Jackson for child molestation, but calling it off at the last moment when they see him and realize that, unlike the report on him, he doesn't appear to be black, after all), wherein Jacko realizes that it's time he take parenting seriously: "I've been so obsessed with my childhood that I've forgotten about his. I thought having lots of rides and toys was enough, but [my son] doesn't need a playmate. He needs a father, and a normal life."
And at the same time, South Park remains funny, rude, and fresh.
The one problem I've had with South Park over the past eighteen months or so is that I never know when a new episode is on. They seem to randomly have a couple of new episodes, and then a slew of repeats, and not of this year's episodes: ones from the first year or two, which we've seen loads of times. So now that I discover there are new ones on, what happens? Natch: after tonight's episode, new ones are "on hiatus" until October.
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