Steve Markle and Jeff Kassel of the FX show Testees
Last Wednesday my sister-in-law alerted me to the fact that the FX show “Testees” was premiering on Showcase. We were both interested in it as one of it’s stars, Steve Markle, went to high school with us. I thanked her for the heads up and dutifully set my PVR to record the show on Showcase HD on Rogers cable.
The next day I sat down to check the show out and discovered that the it had been recorded but there was no dialogue track. The background music swelled, the distant sound of traffic could be heard in the apartment scenes but the actor’s mouths moved silently. Now I had seen this happen before on City TV HD but usually by the end of the first commercial somebody in the station had noticed the problem and corrected it. Not so with Showcase. I fast forwarded to the first commercial and promisingly the dialogue for the ads played just fine. Alas, when I got to the show the sound of machines loudly doing something disgusting to Mr. Markle came through loud and clear while his, perhaps humorous, reactions did not.
I went through the entire episode and the dialogue problem was never corrected. I’m surprised that a show that boasted to be a “Showcase Original” as it opened wasn’t being watched by anyone at the station.
Having quite enjoyed Markle’s YouTube series “Inside Steve’s Mind!” in which he took some tired concepts like poop humour and pushed them to extremes or set up situations that even I found surprising (his use of a man with down syndrome to play God was incredibly audacious) I was looking forward to seeing if “Testees” had any of that sort of gumption.
I guess I’ve missed the second episode by now.
Oh well… I guess if Showcase isn’t worried about it, I shouldn’t be.
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