South Park goes meta in mocking streaming services that pay big bucks for TV shows

The Hollywood Reporter

Season 23's penultimate episode, titled "Basic Cable," revolves around fan favorite character Scott Malkinson, whose cable company employee dad refuses to let him watch streaming services because he views them as the competition. "Scott's father rips on streaming, saying those shows lack ideas and often have to make up shows within shows (which is exactly what South Park has done this season)," says Ryan Parker. "Still, the episode also goes hard on the cable company and the long window of time given for appointments and disrespectful installers. The end of the episode has the best kicker, which is a commercial to call Trey Parker in order to buy the streaming rights to the Scott Malkinson Show. An actual working Fairplay, Colorado number is flashed on screen. Sure enough, when called, there is a recording of Parker giving multiple options to faux shows that have been created within this season." The episode ends of mocking the fact that Parker and Matt Stone recently signed a lucrative $500 million deal with HBO Max.