Each of the first three episodes of the season felt in line with South Park's strong sense of satire and comedy but "Canada on Strike" left me greatly underwhelmed in this regard. It's another one of those episodes where the main characters are pushed more to the side in favour of side characters (in this case, the show's stereotypical yet amusing portrayal of Canadians) but here, there just was not much humour to latch onto for me.
The boys sans Kenny who makes no appearance in this one (potential ramifications from "Major Boobage"?!) try to find a way to end the Canadian strike to get new episodes of Terence and Phillip (as well as for Kyle's brother Ike to resume his normal life) and so they look into Youtube marketing as a way to make some money for the Canadians.
There's some amusing stuff such as Butters's viral video. The more Butters in an episode, the better. He's just one of those perfect characters on the show who, despite being a mostly side character, can easily fill up a central role in an episode time and time again without it exhausting. He's great in this episode as he always is even if the material the boys get in this episode is fairly weak.
One scene that personally went on far too long for me and struggled to evoke any comedic response in me was the scene where the boys meet various Youtube sensations. The entire scene falls completely flat for me as far as humour goes right up to the end with Cartman's punchline that ends the scene: "I guess we're next".
Other side things, Kyle's final moralizing epilogue is a nice touch and the Canadian protest leader is hilarious and his desperate attempts to make it look like he's won when the US finally agree to award them with a prize for their valiant efforts. He's a funny character in an episode that is mostly disappointing and low for comedy. While I felt the comedy was low in an earlier episode of the season, "Britney's New Look", there was plenty of strong satire and drama that made it more compelling as far as I'm concerned.
Anyways, "Canada on Strike" was a disappointing affair. Not offensively bad by any means but a rather weak outing for South Park. If a case is to be made that South Park's decline really begins with this season, then "Canada on Strike" potentially condones that viewpoint.
The boys sans Kenny who makes no appearance in this one (potential ramifications from "Major Boobage"?!) try to find a way to end the Canadian strike to get new episodes of Terence and Phillip (as well as for Kyle's brother Ike to resume his normal life) and so they look into Youtube marketing as a way to make some money for the Canadians.
There's some amusing stuff such as Butters's viral video. The more Butters in an episode, the better. He's just one of those perfect characters on the show who, despite being a mostly side character, can easily fill up a central role in an episode time and time again without it exhausting. He's great in this episode as he always is even if the material the boys get in this episode is fairly weak.
One scene that personally went on far too long for me and struggled to evoke any comedic response in me was the scene where the boys meet various Youtube sensations. The entire scene falls completely flat for me as far as humour goes right up to the end with Cartman's punchline that ends the scene: "I guess we're next".
Other side things, Kyle's final moralizing epilogue is a nice touch and the Canadian protest leader is hilarious and his desperate attempts to make it look like he's won when the US finally agree to award them with a prize for their valiant efforts. He's a funny character in an episode that is mostly disappointing and low for comedy. While I felt the comedy was low in an earlier episode of the season, "Britney's New Look", there was plenty of strong satire and drama that made it more compelling as far as I'm concerned.
Anyways, "Canada on Strike" was a disappointing affair. Not offensively bad by any means but a rather weak outing for South Park. If a case is to be made that South Park's decline really begins with this season, then "Canada on Strike" potentially condones that viewpoint.
