doubleKO said:
When did South Park get good? I watched the first three seasons years ago and didn't care for it. The odd episodes I've seen here and there lately seem a lot better though - at what point did it grow the Riker beard?
I HATED South Park when it first came out. I felt it to be a really dumb show that relied entirely on a reputation of being shocking and crude in order to be "good". I had no problems with shocking or crude, but that is all the show had going for it. Each episode was a string of shocking and crude events tied together by a nonsensical storyline.
Over ten years later, on one of the rare occasions that I found myself in front of a TV with cable hooked up to it (I haven't had cable/an antenna since I was 17) I stumbled across an episode of South Park, watched it, and thought it was a lot of fun. It was the first part of season 11's Imaginationland episode. This prompted me to ask one of my friends the exact same question KO did, "When the HELL did that show get good?" He gave me a list of other episodes he thought I'd really like and told me about the South Park studios website where I could stream any episode for free.
Since then I have seen every single episode at least once. The answer to your question: Season 4. I think at that point they realized they couldn't keep it going on crude humor forever and decided to actually turn it into something intelligent. Not that four was amazing or anything, but I think it show heavy signs of changing trends for the show. Season five, IMHO, was considerably better than four, and year by year the show just kind of keeps going uphill from there.
The second half of season 14 was inexcusably awful, and the beginning of 15 continued that trend, but the show seems to have drifted back on course now.
So there you have it, a ridiculously long answer to your question.