South Park The Streaming Wars

Our Review

The third Paramount+ special trades pandemic gloom for drought farce: a ManBearPig caused water shortage has Denver rationing, and Steve Black discovers he can sell his stream to the city reservoir, which quickly turns into a subscription streaming service, boats of water sent downstream to paying customers, while water park owner Pi Pi lurks with his own recycling scheme. Cartman’s battle with his mother over breast implants as an investment strategy is the special’s engine, and Talnua Cussler’s golf course compound looming over the abandoned hot dog stand gives the kids a genuinely new antagonist setup.

It is funnier in pieces than as a whole. The Streaming Wars title is mostly a delivery mechanism for jokes about the platform paying for it, and the special is openly, sometimes clumsily, about the consolidation slop every subscriber service is pushing. The kids’ plot, streaming water to golf courses from a homemade boat works, is classic South Park kid logic, and the cliffhanger ending was a bold move that left everyone needing part two immediately.

At 48 minutes it moves fast and never quite peaks, sitting in the middle of the specials pack. Watch it as the first half of one story. A decent entry with several huge laughs, an excellent Randy subplot about becoming a stream farmer, and a to be continued that pays off a month later.