South Park: Season 29, Episode 9 "Basic Cable" Review

"Relationships are diabetes times ten."
-Eric Cartman




This episode of South Park is actually the first episode of The Scott Malkinson Show.  When a new girl, Sophie Gray, comes to South Park, Scott gets a crush on her when he finds out she also has diabetes.  Trying to impress her, Scott lies and says he has Disney Plus and invites her over to watch The Mandalorian.  He gets his hands on a black market Disney+ account, but something goes wrong and the streaming service doesn't work.

Scott and Sophie travel to other kids' house, but no one's streaming services are working.  When some of the other boys try to impress Sophie, Scott threatens the others and tells them to leave his girlfriend alone.  Sophie tells him she is not his girlfriend.  Scott sadly leaves.  Later, Sophie goes to see Scott and they form a friendship and bond over having diabetes.

Scott's father, Clark, is a cable repairman and is infuriated about losing business to streaming services.  He and his fellow cable repairmen are the ones who sabotaged the streaming services and very slowly attempt to get their work back.


What Works:

I'll be honest, I didn't really like this episode, but it had a few moments.  I loved the random TV show intros sprinkled throughout the show.  I think all of these shows look better than The Scott Malkinson Show.

I also really liked the scene with Nathan.  Nathan is one my favorite recurring characters on South Park.  His appearances are always hilarious and seeing him open his trench-coat to reveal all of the streaming subscriptions was great. 

Finally, the best moment of the episode comes from Clark ripping on Scott for having diabetes.  I always loved when Cartman mocks Scott by saying "I have diabetes, I'm Scott Malkinson" and it's even funnier when Clark does the exact same thing.

What Sucks:

I didn't really find either of the stories in this episode interesting.  Scott Malkinson is not an interesting character.  He has diabetes.  We get it.  He isn't Butters.  He doesn't deserve his own episode.  I mostly just found him annoying.

Clark's storyline wasn't very good either.  The joke about cable repairmen being slow was funny once, but it's a pretty dated joke overall.  There really isn't much interesting here and the payoff wasn't worth it.

Overall, it just wasn't a funny episode and the stories weren't interesting either.


Verdict:

"Basic Cable" is probably my least favorite episode of the season.  It had a couple of funny moments and I liked all the fake show intros, but Clark and Scott aren't the best characters and the jokes weren't funny enough the make up for them.

 5/10: Meh 

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