We have to wait HOW LONG for more South Park?

Earlier this week I suddenly thought, "Isn't South Park about ready to start the second part of the new season?" For years, South Park has been delivered annually in two half-seasons: seven episodes in fall, and seven in late winter/early spring, for a total of fourteen episodes per season.

I checked the South Park Studios website and found that the last episode aired last November. That means that the second half of the season should be starting soon, right?

Wrong.

As of this year, Matt Stone and Trey Parker are cutting South Park back to a single ten-episode season that will air in one run, rather than being split into two parts. There are a lot of reasons for this change, possibly the biggest being that Stone and Parker are incredibly busy, and South Park's one-week production schedule can best be described as "punishing."

Between the super-success of their play "The Book of Mormon," developing a South Park video game, and starting up a multi-million-dollar production studio, South Park is starting to look like it might be the least important part of their empire. The haters have been asserting for years that Parker and Stone have lost interest in the show, and this will surely only fuel the flames of online conspiracy discussions.

However, if you have seen "Six Days to Air," the documentary about the week it takes to produce each episode, it becomes obvious that only someone who truly loves the show would continue to create it. Parker and Stone are both worth big bank, and they could easily retire from the show now if they wanted to. They could either turn over the reins to other people (the way Matt Groening did with The Simpsons) or end the show entirely.

It's a small glimmer of hope in an otherwise crushing bit of news. We may only be getting ten episodes a year from now on, but it sounds like Stone and Parker will be trying hard to make those ten episodes really worthwhile.

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