Quack Pack, Episode Three: "I.O.U. a U.F.O."

Shit, man, I watched this episode last night, and I'm only now bringing myself to write about it, which maybe should tell you something about the level of enthusiasm I feel.  Actually, though, it's not that bad, all things considered; for whatever reason, I guess I was marginally--but only marginally!--less irked by HDL than I was in the previous two.  Dewey has this child-like fixation on photographing UFOs, which is kind of endearing and really limns what's wrong with the characters in general: they trade almost exclusively in this self-conscious, detached irony, of the "of course we don't actually care about anything; that would be just hopelessly uncool" model that's a big reason why I don't watch South Park anymore even though it can be really funny.  I just can't stand that bullshit.  But when the character's caught in a moment of sincerity, you realize, wow, if the writers weren't so committed to pitching them in this way, they could actually be, you know, likable and stuff, and then we'd have a goddamn show.  But noooo…

(Well, yeah, I'm generalizing here based on all of three episodes, but your comments have not given me much cause for optimism.)

Yeah, so the idea is that that Daisy, along with Donald and HDL, are off to some southwestern locale so she can do a story about supposed UFO sightings.  She, along with everyone but Dewey, is skeptical, but then little alien thingies appear and some kinda dull hijinx occur.  In the end, it turns out that this rancher guy was just using a special projector thing to create the appearance of extraterrestrials.  Turns out there's no such thing as aliens until the expected twist at the very end when there actually is.

Man, when I say it like that, it sounds like an awfully damned thin plot, doesn't it?  Well, it kind of is.  But you know, whatever; as far as these things go (which isn't all that far, but what the hey), this episode was more or less tolerable.