South Park

Seasons

• Season 1

  Season 1 (1997): The show's debut made it an overnight phenomenon — the crude construction-paper look and relentless profanity shocked viewers and critics alike, and the premiere's 889,000 viewers grew fast enough to compel additional episodes. Early reviews split between dismissal as a novelty and recognition of a sharper satirical voice emerging by the season's end, with episodes like "Weight Gain 4000" seen as a significant improvement over the pilot. It effectively put Comedy Central on the map.

• Season 2

  Season 2 (1998): An expanded 18-episode second season worked through the growing pains of a sudden cultural phenomenon. The season was an eclectic stretch that included structural experiments like an episode built entirely around Terrance and Phillip with none of the four main boys on screen. Chef stepped into the spotlight with the novelty hit "Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls."

• Season 3

  Season 3 (1999): A transitional season that critics and audiences now read as the show finding its footing as ongoing satire rather than shock-value novelty. Episodes like "Chinpokomon" and "The Red Badge of Gayness" sharpened the show's target practice considerably. It's still typically grouped with the early era's erratic quality, but the ambition was visibly rising.

• Season 4

  Season 4 (2000): Part of the show's formative, still-uneven stretch — this era produced beloved episodes and outright misses in roughly equal measure. The series had settled into a rhythm but had yet to find the consistency that would define the next phase. Fan periodizations of the show reliably mark this as pre-golden-age.

• Season 5

  Season 5 (2001): The start of what many fans and critics regard as the show's golden age. The premiere, "It Hits the Fan," was built entirely around the word "shit," and the season escalated into darker comic territory with "Scott Tenorman Must Die," widely cited as a landmark of the show's comedy of cruelty. "Kenny Dies" also signaled that the show could reach for something closer to genuine feeling.

• Season 6

  Season 6 (2002): A season defined by absence and substitution, with Butters stepping into the main rotation and winning over audiences in the process — a transition that expanded the ensemble and became a fan-favorite era in its own right. It ranks among the most fondly remembered seasons of the golden period.

• Season 7

  Season 7 (2003): A golden-era entry with no structural gambles as flashy as the seasons around it, but a strong, steady run of town-and-boys adventures. This is the kind of season that made the mid-2000s dominance feel effortless rather than hard-won.

• Season 8

  Season 8 (2004): A standout season even by golden-era standards, packed with fan-favorite episodes such as "Woodland Critter Christmas," "AWESOM-O," and "The Passion of the Jew" — the latter one of the show's most notorious celebrity-targeting episodes. "Good Times with Weapons" showcased the show's willingness to experiment with format and animation style. A run this dense is why the mid-2000s are considered the peak.

• Season 9

  Season 9 (2005): The season of "Trapped in the Closet," the Scientology satire that became one of the show's most famous controversies, drew an Emmy nomination, and famously led voice actor Isaac Hayes to leave the series. "Best Friends Forever" showed the show's knack for building an entire episode around a then-current phenomenon. A pivotal, news-making stretch.

• Season 10

  Season 10 (2006): The season in which the show's cultural standing was formally recognized with a Peabody Award. It sits squarely within the golden-era periodization. The show's famously fast production turnaround — writing and animating in under a week to stay ahead of the news — was by now as much a part of the show's reputation as the jokes themselves.

• Season 11

  Season 11 (2007): Home of the "Imaginationland" trilogy, an ambitious multi-part arc that won the show a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program. Critics also singled out the season's deft handling of nerd and gaming culture, praising the show for getting the subculture right without pandering to it. Another high-water mark of the golden era.

• Season 12

  Season 12 (2008): A strong entry in the show's most fertile stretch, continuing the confident run of the mid-2000s. Its episodes are less frequently cited as all-time landmarks than the seasons immediately around it, but the quality bar remained high throughout. A dependable, workmanlike season at the top of the show's form.

• Season 13

  Season 13 (2009): "Margaritaville" earned the show another Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program, in a season that also included the widely celebrated "Fishsticks," a Kanye West takedown that became an instant cultural reference. A late-peak reminder of how consistently the show could land a pop-culture satire.

• Season 14

  Season 14 (2010): A season in the show's settled middle period, continuing the formula that had made it a fixture. Less mythologized than the golden-era seasons, but still recognizably the same confident show. Fits the fan periodization of the era as strong but no longer at its absolute peak.

• Season 15

  Season 15 (2011): Another middle-era season mixing standout episodes with filler — the stretch fans tend to describe as the tail of the show's long peak. The show's topical reach continued to widen as it entered its teenage years.

• Season 16

  Season 16 (2012): Notable for "Butterballs," an episode built around bullying and the show's own prickly relationship with anti-bullying campaigns, which produced one of its catchiest original songs. The season reflects the show's growing tendency toward self-referential, media-savvy targets.

• Season 17

  Season 17 (2013): Opened with the "Black Friday" trilogy, a Game of Thrones parody that became an instant fan favorite — an extended arc that anticipated the serialized experiments just ahead. Also featured "The Hobbit," a pointed commentary on digital beauty standards. A season that looks backward to the classic format and forward to the show's next phase.

• Season 18

  Season 18 (2014): The season where serialization began creeping in — most notably the running Randy-as-Lorde arc, which critics later cited among the chief highlights of the show's late-period resurgence. Episodes like "The Cissy" showed the show still knew how to ignite a culture-war firestorm without taking the easy side. A transitional, quietly ambitious year.

• Season 19

  Season 19 (2015): Widely hailed as the show's best in nearly a decade, this is the season that fully committed to serialized storytelling and introduced PC Principal, a new permanent character. Mr. Garrison's transformation into a presidential candidate anchored the season's arc. A deliberate reinvention rather than a retread.

• Season 20

  Season 20 (2016): The show's most serialized season yet — member berries, troll culture, and the 2016 election — drew sharply divided reviews. Some critics praised it as blisteringly insightful and proof the show was still a voice worth hearing every year; others, and many fans, called it a creative misfire that struggled to make its year-long story cohere. The finale was widely seen as failing to tie the threads together. The most contested season in the show's history.

• Season 21

  Season 21 (2017): A clear low point for both critics and viewers — the season's satire was called atypically timid and unsure of its targets, a striking departure from the show's usual assuredness. The standout counterexample was "Put It Down," an Emmy-nominated episode widely praised as the era's best. Reception here set up the show's next recalibration.

• Season 22

  Season 22 (2018): A deliberate move back toward a less serialized, more episodic format, and critics responded with relief — the season was said to have recaptured the show's sardonic magic even if individual episodes remained hit-or-miss. Randy's new Tegridy Farms storyline debuted here, a running gag that would come to define the next era.

• Season 23

  Season 23 (2019): The last full traditional season before the pandemic, centered increasingly on Randy's Tegridy Farms marijuana-farming arc. The running joke wore thin for many viewers by season's end, with even enthusiasts noting the formula was growing stale. It was followed by two years of specials rather than a regular season.

• Season 24

  Season 24 (2020–21): Not a conventional season at all — the pandemic forced production to reinvent itself, yielding two hour-long specials (The Pandemic Special and South ParQ Vaccination Special) instead of a weekly run. The vaccination special became the top cable telecast of its year with nearly 3.5 million viewers, proving the audience hadn't gone anywhere. A production experiment that pointed the way to the show's streaming-era future.

• Season 25

  Season 25 (2022): A short six-episode season — the show's first weekly return in two years — that critics found slow to start, with COVID-adjacent satire that felt like going through the motions. It got going only near the end with a pair of Butters-centric episodes tackling cancel culture and the war in Ukraine, and then promptly ended. The truncated length became its own recurring criticism.

• Season 26

  Season 26 (2023): Another six-episode season, one that critics and fans largely found underwhelming — the finale continued what reviewers described as a disappointing trend in the show's recent output. Its real milestone was structural: with this season, South Park surpassed Arthur as the second-longest-running American animated series by season count, leaving only The Simpsons ahead.

• Season 27

  Season 27 (2025): A comeback season in every sense — the premiere drew the show's biggest audience in 26 years and its most social episode ever, as the satire turned unsparingly on the new presidential administration. The season put South Park back at the center of the cultural conversation, winning over a new generation of viewers who had previously written it off. It was as controversial as anything in the show's history, which was exactly the point.

• Season 28

  Season 28 (2025–26): The season opened with the show confronting its own reputation head-on: a Halloween episode had Stan declare that "South Park sucks now" because of all the political stuff, directly satirizing the show's critics. That self-awareness hasn't fully won over audiences — early-season reception has been sharply divided, with some longtime fans calling it the show's worst stretch yet. The serialized, Washington-heavy direction continues with an Antichrist storyline.