#this is my new dream though. not podcast characters specifically but I bet I could manage a figure company

[flufflecat]

I'm going to start a figure production company devoted entirely to selling figures of podcast characters

[spanthology]

my predictions for season 25 of south park.

this is some of the stuff that i'm expecting to see in season 25 which officially starts tomorrow. some of this is general, some specific. it's not all stuff i want to happen, just what i think is likely.

1) change of the formula

for starters, i think we should be ready for changes. where we left off before the specials in season 23, they were already experimenting with changing the focus away from the 4 boys. idk if that trend will continue, but i think it's safe to say that trey and matt want to keep the series from going stale, and trying out new things that could risk angering the fanbase will be part of that. we might get a slightly more serious tone like we he had with post covid, or maybe they'll lean into the anthology format and we get to see more stories from the other characters. whatever the case is, it will most likely be divisive. some people will love it while others will hate it. for me, the anthology direction sounds like exactly what the series needs.

2) casa bonita

last year, despite the desert of new sp content, we did get a lot of news concerning matt and trey. the giant paramount deal and renewal was obviously the biggest news for the fans, but for the guys it might be the fact that bought a giant colorado restaurant; casa bonita. so i imagine this work its way into an episode or two. either the boys revisit casa bonita itself and we get some meta jokes about the new management, or we get a plot of a character buying a run down business and we get the story of matt and trey's experience told through allegory. maybe they'll do both.

3) valentines day.

this is actually the first time an episode has premiered in february since season 1. the only other valentines day episode was "tom's rhinoplasty". and what better way to reenergize the fanbase than to mess about with all their favorite ships. maybe stan and wendy get back together, maybe tweek and craig break up. what i mostly want to see is some ridiculous love triangle that upsets everyone like kylexwendyxcraig. although as i just said, a goal here would likely be to excite the fans, not crap all over their dreams so maybe they'll save my idea for next valentines day.

4) saving cartman's future

where we last left off in post covid; return of covid, everyone gets a happy future except for cartman who we see as a homeless alcoholic. i doubt we'll actually go back to the post covid futures any time soon but i do think we'll get some resolution on cartman because that that predetermined future frames him as a victim as much as he is a victimizer which makes it harder to root against him. this could simply be just making the point that the future is not set in stone, or it could be a bigger plot where cartman starts down this path and then someone stops him and puts him on a new path that we don't know the ending of.

5) new principle

pc principle has overstayed his welcome as a character, though i'm not certain that trey and matt see it that way so it's possible the pc family may still stick around, just not with pc principle as a principle. the thing is that the sjw fad has largely passed. joe rogan is the most popular podcast and south park is more successful than ever before. to me that means that portraying these very influential positions as being controlled by sjw ideologues isn't as true to reality as it seemed in 2015. maybe principle victoria will come back, or maybe mr. garrison will take over...oh geeez. after seeing the preview for pajama day, i'd bet this change happens by the end of the 1st episode.

6) tegridy remains

unlike with the sjw people, the hippies are actually winning. drugs are getting legalized left and right, there's massive addiction issues, and there's still all these weed based startups that pop up whenever a new state legalizes. i'm not sure we'll have drugs as a major plot point this season, but i think we can be fairly sure that drugs will be plot points in many seasons to come, and it makes more sense to keep the premise of someone already in the drug business than having to reestablish some new connection each time.

7) parodies and references

while there's a lot they could draw on from the past 2 years, it's worth remembering that south park prides itself on being exceptionally timely, so however much i'd love to see a "tiger king" sp episode, i think squid games is the furthest back they're likely to reach for inspiration. although classics like bladerunner and terminator are of course always on the table. i think we could see them take on the matrix resurrections, don't look up, squid games, and book of boba fett/mandolorian, and expect plenty of classics as well.

8) topics and commentaries

i expect we'll see less politics this season. lets just say 2022 us politics is not as interesting as 2016-2021 us politics was. unless there's actually serious developments like ww3 or something, i'm not anticipating a joe biden episode or anything like that. the little cultural debates that pundits like to get overly dramatic about are likely to get covered but i'm sure they also have things to say about the entertainment and business worlds as well. i think they'll cover the republican obsession with critical race theory (probably in the 1st episode), they'll probably do something with joe rogan, maybe something about the 'rust' alex baldwin accident, and maybe we'll get plots that involve tiktok, twitch, and 'the metaverse'.

9) cliffhanger

they want people to sign up for paramount+. would they be so cruel as to end the season suspensefully with unresolved plot threads to be concluded in the next paramount special? yeah i think so. i can see them setting up some big reveal about kenny's power or something, only to cut it off and tell people they need to watch the next special to see how it concludes. do you disagree with these predictions? have any of your own? make your case . let's see how wrong i turn out to be.