Forum

If it's not regulated by any clause in the contract and the only purpose of Viacom is to keep the show alive, a single 5 minute long "episode" per year would make just as much sense as anything else. Plus, it sounds like an even better number, too.

I remember when they began production on Season 2, Trey and Matt wanted to do 20 episodes a season.

Oh, how the times change...

A good site to check up from time to time is

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/releases/So ... ason/12920

10 episodes a season is ok i suppose its only 4 short of the usual 14 i just hope they don`t have any multi part episodes, its just a long wait until september.

They do seem to have alot of other stuff going on at the moment Like BOM opening up in London & the game coming out.

I know it was wrong for me to call M&T lazy because I love them and have high respect for them. But they did a movie and a play and other projects the same time they were doing 14 episodes. I know they have the video game coming but not everyone has money to buy it or even a controller to play it on. So not everyone will be able to enjoy what looks to be an amazing video game. But what else could they be doing that would delay SP until Sep.? And again, ten episodes? People say M&T will have time to really make a great show now but it was already great. Each season is special in its own way. And I highly doubt they will loose the whole '6 days to air' thing. So how would the show be 'better'? They will have the same amount of time to produce an episode, finishing things up the morning of Wed. as always.

I call my reaction as part of the OCD in me. My brain is freaking out things are going to be changed and the wait is going to be tedious. Might as well call the wait for season 17 as terrible as it was after You're Getting Old aired.

I just want SP in spring! Make it April or even May! But don't let those with metal/emotinal problems wait this long!

We'll see; the sentence above says both that for the fans cutting back on the number of episodes per season would seem risky, and in the same sentence says they (M&T) have been right about a lot of things.

It doesn't say they have been right all the time but merely that they have been right about a lot of things. Fans will (and are) concerned about the season being shortened by 4 episodes, and that the fans won't get their South Park fix twice a year (7 episodes at a time). Take this BBS for example. I've never seen it as inactive as it is now. Sometimes I lurk before I log in to see what new posts were made since my last visit here only to find one or two posts at most were made. And now without a season "A" starting in a month and a half from now, I predict the BBS will have even less activity.

By the way, here is the new Countdown Timer I made for the start of Season 17 (no "A" or "B") at 10:00 pm Eastern Time.

While it will be a long wait, on the bright side, at least next Fall's semester will go by a lot easier with South Park to look forward to for more weeks than usual.

Sheer torture. Granted the first half of every season is always the weaker half IMO, its still sheer torture having to wait til September, especially when the last season ended in November. I don't mind 10 episodes, but damn, why not do it in July or August.

Well, I guess the silver lining is that we'll get the video game this Spring. I guess that makes up for not having a Spring season of episodes. I really hope it does come out early this year, though. With THQ going out of business I hope it doesn't take Ubisoft too long to ramp the game up for production.

I don't like it. So used to 7 episodes in the Spring and 7 episodes in the Fall! And going from 14 shows to 10?? Even worse! Sad to say, but M&T are really dialing it down, and are hyper-focused on BOM. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for them that "Mormon" has been a SMASH hit. However, it just seems like South Park has become a side project, and it showed in the many lackluster episodes from season 16.

Oh, well. At least the game will come out soon. Let's hope it is worth the wait and lives up to the hype!

Although the delay is disappointing I'm not taking this as bad news. My only complaint about South Park is the huge difference in quality between the episodes.

Half the time I get the impression that Matt and Trey don't have anything funny to say so they throw something together in order to get paid. Ten quality episodes starting in September is certainly a better deal than fourteen episodes starting in March, when only a few of the fourteen are worthy of repeat viewing.

They themselves have been saying this for years, especially near the end of the half-seasons. That is no impression you're getting.

Well, at least I have a lot going on to keep me occupied until autumn.
I don't blame M&T for making this decision. 16 years is a long time, and I guess they need more time to make good episodes. I suppose it's emotionally draining for them, and they're not getting any younger.
it's not the end of the world. Better this than turning into Simpsons. I would rather have them cancel the show than to make it into new Simpsons.

A big letdown for sure, but all is not lost. There's still a chance that this season could break the threshold of the past 5 years. Season 15 got the best reviews I've read since the Imaginationland trilogy despite them first releasing The Book of Mormon that winter, and I haven't given up hope yet. Even if they've cut the quantity of episodes by 25%, they can still turn out stellar quality. The only problem is that it's about 8 months down the line, and the drought is gonna HURT! I'm just gonna have to console myself with the release of Pikmin 3, the first screenshots of Smash 4, and the announcement of more new Nintendo software at E3 this June. The best part: If they really want to keep it going "for a long time to come," it'll certainly be made up for if they renew the contract for yet more seasons, which I still hold out hope for.

I'm trying to keep my mouth shut but...

WHY SEPTEMBER COME ON!?

:'(

Although I understand M&T's reasoning (they want to produce greater quality content at the cost of quantity and want time off for other projects) I'm going to completely disregard it to bitch.

South Park's schedule was perfect. After a few months of classes, when all hope seemed to have disappeared, it came to the rescue. The season would end allowing you to focus on midterms, and would leave you alone during Christmas when you were spending time with family and friends. Then, after a few months of classes, it would reappear as another season, and disappear again to let you focus on exams. Then summer, TV shows not really necessary once more. And the cycle would continue. SP was always there at the most dire times of need, and it will be missed.

I was already beginning my pre-season South Park anticipation, eager for March to come, and now I find I'll have to wait until September.

I would've rather SP slimmed down their episodes per season, but still spread them out better throughout the year, e.g. 1 episode/month barring June and July. I always felt the old schedule made them miss out on some great opportunities for social commentary because topics had become stale, if they had adopted the 1/month method they could've made up for it.

Hope the wait'll be worth the while.