South Park returned with a bang for its 24th season on Wednesday night when they aired their highly promoted “Pandemic Special”, which managed to pull in numbers not seen by the show in a long time. 7 years, to be exact.
As shown in the promotional trailer for the episode, Trey Parker and Matt Stone were eager to put their creative minds to work on the silver platter full of source material that has been 2020, and it’s safe to say the hour long special delivered. No page was left unturned as the South Park kids struggled with going back to school safely, a defunded police force was thrown inside the classrooms to sub in for teachers and everyone in town started to feel stressed after 6 months of quarantine.
It seems like their relatable narrative choices definitely paid off, with the “Pandemic Special” drawing a 2.3 million viewers on Comedy Central for a 168% audience increase from its 23rd season’s viewership and 178% increase from their average numbers.
Those numbers add up to 4,5 million viewers when accounting for the people who tuned in via MTV, VH1, Paramount Network, TV Land and Pop TV, all sister brands airing the episode under Comedy Central’s parent network, ViacomCBS.
It’s not hard to see how the special attracted viewer’s interest. South Park is mostly known for its controversial takes on modern society and it was always going to be interesting to see what its writers could come up with since going on break in December 2019. Without departing from its continuous narrative of recent years, the episode tackles the pandemic’s origins, face mask (or rather face diaper) controversy, online classes and Zoom meetings, police abuse, Black Lives Matters, cabin fever symptoms and even calls out everyone’s democratic duties with President Garrison’s final line: “Don’t forget to get out and vote, everybody. Big Election coming up”.
Even if the one-off hour special is listed on Comedy Central’s site as episode 1 in season 24, there is no word yet on when South Park will resume its normal schedule with no more episodes announced so far. Whatever the case, the “Pandemic Special” was a hit by giving audiences a chance to laugh at this year’s woes because, after all, everyone can put themselves in Stan’s shoes when he says “I just want to have fun again… I want my life back”.
Source: Deadline