Photo courtesy of southparkstudios.com

Another week, another lackluster South Park. Man, this is killing me. I have long argued that South Park is one of the most consistently funny shows on the air, but this season has seen a drastic decline in the number of laughs per episode (with the exceptions of Major Boobage and Canada on Strike.) This episode, about the internet ceasing to work across the country, only made me laugh out loud once.

The show began with the Marsh family being hopelessly addicted to the net, and having to be pulled off their computers by Sharon. When they wake up the next morning, they all notice that they have no internet, and they panic. Shelly’s anger about needing to talk to her darling Amir were mildly amusing, but only mildly. As the town of South Park realized that they were all without net access, they panicked, realizing they were cut-off. I was half-expecting the show to take a Jericho-esque turn at this point, but instead the Marsh family headed off to California.

Oh, excuse me, Californee way. They called California Californee! Whoo!

I have laughed at some awfully random and nonsensical things on South Park over the years, but this running bit just did not do it for me. Did anyone else find it funny? Is it maybe that I have a sour taste in my mouth after this sub-par season that I can’t find it in my heart to appreciate some out-of-the-blue silliness? Or is it just that Californee isn’t funny?

Also not funny was the Marsh’s family stop along their way to California in black and white. There’s only a little internet left, and there won’t be enough for everyone. I’m sorry, where’s the joke here?

The show’s second act picked up the pace a bit by sending the government out to try to fix the internet. With the show’s dated references lately, I was half expecting them to show the net as a series of tubes, but instead we got a giant router with a blinking orange light. Once again, there was potential for the show to do something really creative and funny here, but once again the opportunity was missed. I started to chuckle when they tried playing music for the router a la Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This could have led to a lot more gags about how the government would try to reason with this giant router, but sadly, it did not.

Also falling under the mildly amusing umbrella is what goes down at the Internet Refugee Camp. The main joke here is that everyone only gets 40 seconds online, which isn’t nearly enough time to do anything, even fully appreciate thedancingkitty.com. Sure, it’s an accurate observation; Americans love sitting on the computer for very long stretches. A good “it’s funny because it’s true” bit can certainly work (as it does later in the show), but this joke just falls flat.

The show really went for the laughs in Randy’s quest for online porn. The porn simulator was a funny concept, with graphic images being quickly drawn as stick figures. When Randy actually got online and found all the porn he wanted, the strange and bizarre sound effects that played were funny, as was the visual of a busted Randy, covered in semen, trying to explain that a ghost attacked him. Again, I’ve found some extremely low-brow stuff hysterical on South Park before, but these jokes only were comical, not over-the-top hilarious.

Which brings me to the one truly laugh out loud moment of the show, which was how Kyle fixed the internet. I’ll omit the spoiler of how he fixes it, but I thought it was the only truly good laugh of the episode. It definitely falls under the “funny because its true” category, but as I said earlier, sometimes those jokes can work, and the delivery this time is spot-on.

Then, for some reason, the episode ends with a parody of Steven Seagal’s speech at the end of his 1994 directorial debut, On Deadly Ground. Unlike the dated Close Encounters reference, this gag doesn’t work, and I have to imagine that most people won’t get what the show was spoofing here. (I went through a Seagal/Van Damme movie phase when I was younger; I don’t like to talk about it.)

Come on South Park, you’re better than this! I believe in you, Trey and Matt! The one thing about these recent disappointing episodes is that for every gag that doesn’t work, there’s a similar type of joke that works very well. But there’s something missing in the follow through that leads to an unfortunately skewed ratio of potential funny to realized funny. As a huge fan of the show, I sincerely hope it gets back on track, and soon.

Alan’s Score: 3.6 out of 10