South Park: The Complete Tenth Season

They're still finishing up season 11 and last year is already out on DVD. This collection of episodes catches creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker still battling things out with Scientology, the Virgin Mary and Isaac Hayes while entering "the writing stage,” which they both admit is no fun. The first episode of season ten was an anxious one as most people knew South Park was going to rub out Chef, voiced by Hayes, who decided to leave the show after the unwanted attention his religion received at the expense of wacko Tom Cruise. After one last kick at Scientology, the show takes dead aim at another threat in a two-part episode that ruined Family Guy for me. Matt and Trey got so fed up over the praise the Griffins received that they decided to tear them apart quite convincingly, incorporating some Muhammad jokes, Terrance and Philip, and a tip of the hat to The Simpsons, even continuing to trash the show for its lazy writing in the commentary. The return of Towelie (a weed smoking towel) is a little bit of a let down though, as a bizarre hostage situation between Oprah’s vagina and ass breaks out, with Matt and Trey admitting it was too much for one episode, as Towelie is strange enough. By far the best episode is "Make Love, Not Warcraft,” in which the boys battle a nerd online in World of Warcraft (marketing genius: the DVD actually has a free demo of the game), becoming even larger nerds in the process. The fact that the videogame company helped in the animation by lending South Park the software makes for a very enjoyable viewing experience, similar to the anime episode a couple of years back. Season ten of South Park is great, as always, demonstrating that the show continues to grow stronger each year. And although the DVD’s only extra is still the five-minute commentaries on each episode with Matt and Trey, at this point it doesn’t really matter. The show is quality and hearing those two talk shit about celebrities never gets tiresome.