Jasmine Sahu is well suited with this new American drama exclusive to Dave.
Lois Cameron explains why this series is much more than your average cosy period drama.
The last episode of this series sees Sherlock and Moriarty attempt to solve the final problem with devastating consequences.
With major cast changes afoot, Jacob Martin ponders whether Being Human can live up to its own scarily high standard.
The return of South Park last week saw two episodes both displaying the bizarre potential dangers of technology. In the first outing to the Colorado town, we had ‘The Human CentiPad’, a human-excrement-powered computer tablet engineered by Apple bigwig Steve Jobs, while the second outing offered us the ‘Funnybot’, a German comedy machine designed to make the funniest jokes ever.
It’s always somewhat of a game trying to extrapolate Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s message in a whirlwind of the absurd and often downright disgusting. Though the main driving point of ‘The Human CentiPad’ was to remind people of the contractual nature of Apple’s constricting terms and conditions (portrayed to the extreme with Kyle signing away his body to be sewn on to another’s as a power source for an iPad, à la the disturbing B-movie The Human Centipede), the episode garnered some of its best moments from its mocking of Apple’s elitism (“everyone knows that everything but Apple is stupid!”) language (“you have to iApprove all his agreements”) and procedures – the exchanges between the ‘Geniuses’ were a real treat. Though I did feel a little short-changed for no explicit mocking of the iPad itself, perhaps that was a conscious decision as most iPad jokes have already been made – and a few months ago at that.
‘Funnybot’, presumably inspired by the inclusion of a robot contestant on the US game show Jeopardy!, was the weaker episode of the two, though it got in a few good digs at African-American writer/director Tyler Perry (who only Token found funny), the Germans for their poor sense of humour and the ironic seriousness of comedy awards. However the episode had less of a sense of direction or cohesion when screened alongside ‘The Human CentiPad’ (which cleverly weaved in a subplot about Cartman’s protestations to not getting an iPad being misinterpreted as his mother sexually abusing him), and particularly faltered with Funnybot’s obscene but unfunny jokes (I get that that was the point, but it just made for uncomfortable viewing). Its brief reference to last week’s events did make it more a ‘hot-button-issue’ episode, with Obama making a couple of appearances to address the nation similar to his announcement of Bin Laden’s death. Maybe this could explain the peculiar direction of having the Funnybot exterminate an entire audience during a comedy routine only to be found hilarious by everyone who survived – were they alluding to the celebratory reactions following Bin Laden’s death that some deemed tasteless?
I’ll leave you with some of the best lines from the two episodes. Feel free to add any I may have missed in the comments:
- Everything Cartman said with vaguely sexual connotations, including:
“Would you mind loaning me some of your lipstick, Mom? Because I wanna at least look pretty the next time you decide to f*ck me!”
“You might as well go buy some cigarettes too, because I like to have a smoke after I get good and f*cked!”
“Why don't you go across the street and buy some condoms?! Because we should at least be safe if you're gonna f*ck me, Mom!”
- Leslie [an Apple Genius]: “Okay, well I'm sorry you're having trouble with that today. Could I have his [Kyle’s] Apple ID?” ... Stan: “sixtyniningchipmunks@me.com.”
- “A sausage maker buys a box of cereal.” (An example of a German joke)
- Cartman: “Token, stop giving Tyler Perry money or he won't go away!”
- President Obama: “I'm going to spend my final moments on this Earth with my loved ones... watching a Tyler Perry movie. I know, it's embarrassing. But I simply can't help myself.”
New South Park continues Fridays at 10pm on Comedy Central
You must log in to submit a comment.
