The cult and sympathy that a series like Cites aroused should not be underestimated despite the fact that its audience figures, together with the CCMA's budgetary problems, led TV3 not to renew the romantic comedy for a third season. The resurrection of the format as a co-production between public television and Amazon Prime Video, therefore, was good news. In theory.
First the alarms went off when it was discovered that this comeback, which is entitled Cites: Barcelona, had been shot in Catalan and Spanish, instead of being shot entirely in Catalan like the episodes broadcast between 2015 and 2016. Then the first trailer on the Catalan channel where one detail could be verified: the public could see the series with a Catalan dubbing that, according to the images, seemed at least questionable. And, during its broadcast this Monday in the network's primetime, the disaster was confirmed: the dubbing of the Spanish-speaking characters was abominable.
“They say that it had to be done in Spanish because of the financing. Do we really have to put up with this unworthy Frankenstein with all the money that the Generalitat and the Parliament put in?" criticized Joel Joan, who had been one of the channel's fiction mainstays as creator of series like Plats bruts, Porca misèria and The Crash.
To finish off the troubled broadcast, the option to see the first date between Carlos Cuevas and Clara Lago in dual did not work correctly. Whoever wanted to see the original version with a minimum of 70% of the dialogues in Spanish had to settle for hearing annoying noises. “Why can't we hear the original voice of the actors? Why do you force us to this terrifying dubbing?” lamented the cultural journalist Toni Vall.
The consensus on social networks was clear: part of the problem was not even the dubbing but having agreed to shoot the series in Spanish and then dub it into Catalan.
“If you allow me, a small clarification: what is shit is not the dubbing of
"You don't give a shit about the language, it's been crystal clear." “I didn't know today was Crims night. I say this because of the crime that has been committed against Catalan in Cites: Barcelona”. "The series has been stolen from us." "As a product of the CCMA, it is totally questionable on a linguistic level." These are just some of the impressions published while the public raised their hands to their heads to see Gonzalo de Castro and Carmen Machi with a dubbing typical of a low-budget Nordic production.
The director of TV3, Sígfrid Gras, defended the co-production during the presentation of Cites: Barcelona. “With this series we want to bring Catalan to the world”, he explained. But "Amazon also has its interests and they also want a series that travels better for Latin America." “It's a win-win”, he declared, because the right of the Catalan public to see fiction in Catalan would be respected.
Of course, he did not even convince Juliana Canet, his interviewer on the red carpet, who forcefully tweeted his verdict this Monday: "In summary: we have paid for a series that no one will see in a Catalan version, and we will have to settle for the three moments where our language is spoken”. She also added that before bringing Catalan to the world "perhaps the first step is to bring Catalan here".
Pau Freixas, director and executive producer of Cites: Barcelona, had already defended the co-production and its bilingualism in an interview for La Vanguardia, especially after TV3's refusal to renew the series at the time: "The series was not renewed by TV3 in his day for a third season and eight years later the engine of his return has been Prime Video, which wanted to shoot in Spanish but it seemed good that, taking into account the economic contribution of TV3, there would be a percentage in Catalan”.
"You have to do all the series in Catalan that you can, but that doesn't mean giving up co-productions like this, which are being done all over the world," he argued. Of course, dubbing seemed like a "disaster" because he hates seeing any production he knows the language dubbed, as is the case with Spanish."But since everything is dubbed, if there are people who want to see everything in Catalan, then go ahead," he suggested.
