Why South Park Season 4 Episode 14 Is Hated

screenrant.com:

There are few shows as controversial as South Park, and there are few episodes of the cartoon satire as controversial as the fan-hated “Pip” (season 4, episode 14). Like any show that has been around for a matter of decades, South Park has produced its fair share of disappointing episodes. As a pointed political satire, some of South Park’s most disliked outings have been criticized for relying on hot takes that aged poorly or were viewed as insensitive.

However, while outings like season 23’s “Board Girls” or the recent special The Streaming Wars featured transphobic gags that earned the ire of reviewers, other South Park episodes have been disliked for less obvious reasons. Sometimes, despiteSouth Park’s scatological humor and no-holds-barred approach to satire, it is the show’s more anodyne outings that annoy fans most. For example, the Great Expectations parody “Pip” is frequently listed as one of South Park’s most hated outings online, despite the episode featuring less potentially offensive jokes than many of the show’s more controversial outings.

Related: South Park: The Streaming Wars Part 2 Ending Explained (In Detail)

“Pip” is hated by many fans online and even cited by South Park’s creators themselves as a failed experiment, but it can be tricky upon a rewatch to work out just what is so bad about the episode in question. While plots like South Park’s pointless Tegridy Farms story can reasonably be accused of taking forever to go nowhere, “Pip” has a self-contained, fast-moving plot based on a deservedly beloved piece of classic literature. While many South Park episodes rely on hot-button topics that cause the show’s outings to age terribly, “Pip” is a parody of a novel that is over 100 years old, making its