CliqueClack TV
TV SHOWS COLUMNS FEATURES CHATS QUESTIONS

Testees – Season 1 review

testeesSeason 1 of FX’s newest ribald comedy – Testees - wrapped its inaugural season last night. If you’re not familiar with this hilarious series, it follows the bizarre antics of lifelong friends Peter and Ron, who both earn livings as professional medical guinea pigs at a testing facility called Testico.

What would possess two healthy men in their thirties to offer up their bodies to be poked and prodded by surly foreign doctors? Try easy money and laziness. Sound like good enough reasons to me. Being a human pin cushion can’t be all bad, can it?

Well, the experimental drugs and devices tested do carry certain harmful side effects. How harmful you ask? Allow me to share a few of the more preposterous ones:

  • A sex-change pill that shrinks the penis and grows breasts.
  • Shampoo that causes blindness.
  • A chastity belt that shocks the genitals at the moment of arousal.
  • The pheromone spray that attracts only ugly women.
  • An artificially-intelligent vacuum cleaner that murders its owners.

Yes, Ron and Peter endure their share of pain and embarrassment, but it’s all in the name of scientific advancement. Some might call them crusaders serving the public interest. Others, like myself, prefer to label them as idiot losers with no real job skills. To each their own, I say.

In addition to Peter and Ron, there’s a solid collection of supporting players whom engage in all manner of tomfoolery: Nugget, a slovenly free-loader who squats in the apartments of dead people; Larry, a lascivious horndog who traps women in elevators to increase his chances of getting laid; Kate, the tomboyish cutie and bar owner who unwittingly finds herself embroiled in one if not all the boys’ harebrained schemes.

Steve Markle and Jeff Kassel portray Peter and Ron respectively. Markle — who resembles a scrawny Richard Gere — plays Peter as a lovelorn sad-sack who often gets the worse of the duo. He’s infatuated with Kate, but Kate wants nothing to do with him. Kassel brings an energetic charm to Ron, who has the privilege of being the luckier of the two ne’re-do-wells. Although, he does have the distinction of driving the same woman to and from homosexuality.

Testees is asinine, repugnant and deviant on the same level as its FX brother It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The situations that befall Ron and Peter are so absurd it’s difficult not to laugh. A few episodes clearly stand out but I found them all to be funny. There is no word on whether FX will renew the series yet. However, I would be very surprised if they didn’t. It fits perfectly into their slate of edgy programming.  If you enjoy bathroom humor, male nudity and friends who treat one another like shit, then you’ll love Testees, Thursdays at 11:00pm; or you can surf over to FX’s site and watch the entire season in about four hours. Isn’t the internet great?

Photo Credit: fxnetworks.com

Categories: | Clack | Episode Reviews | General |

2 Responses to “Testees – Season 1 review”

December 19, 2008 at 8:20 PM

Love “Sunny”.

“Testees” not so much I’m afraid. To be honest, I found it anything but funny.

Powered By OneLink