The best season ever

Another season of "South Park" is out for you to own, but do you really need to have it? There are two main issues that make buying a DVD set of a TV show season different from a movie. 1) Price -- usually a quality TV set costs more than $30 for a season and 2) Volume -- referring to the sheer quantity of television shows now \navailable on DVD. If I bought the DVD set of every season from every TV show I loved, it would be like a full-time job. So what do we do? We create stricter guidelines for how good a season has to be in order to be worth the price, which brings me to "South Park," Season 9: It may be the best season ever.\nFor a show as successful and as long-running as "South Park," this is a pretty bold statement, but just look at the episode list: Mr. Garrison becomes a woman, the kids try to lose at baseball and Randy Marsh battles "Bat Dad," Jimmy can't get rid of his boner before the talent show, the kids talk to a whale and try to get him back to the moon, Randy Marsh tries to cure his alcoholism with help from a bleeding statue and the epic "Trapped in the Closet" episode about Scientologists that caused Isaac Hayes to quit the show.\nSeason 9 exemplifies all the things Trey Parker and Matt Stone do best. They can push the envelope of what's allowed while simultaneously making a social/political point while also simultaneously being hilarious. And each episode has at least one distinctive "laugh-out-loud" moment. Out of my favorite episodes, Season 9 has about five or six of them.\nSpecial features on the set are limited to an audio commentary on each episode by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, but if I could only choose one feature for the DVDs to have, this would be it. Getting to listen to the creators describe and explain each episode adds to their already near-limitless rewatchability. This is a season you need.