“Race to Space”

Masters of Sex hasn’t settled in yet.  The show is still in its infancy, so it still has loads of potential.  It didn’t trip coming out of the blocks, but it isn’t breaking away from the pack either.  Enough with the clichés, on with the show.

The number one opportunity for this show to distance itself is to present the audience with a strong female character who is able to function without always falling back on a man, or breaking down completely.  Masters follows Homeland, which had a similar opportunity with Claire Danes winning Emmys, and instead threw her into a mental institution when things got tough.  So far, Lizzy Caplan is acting the shit out of this part thus far, even when the dialogue and the setup is sometimes underwhelming.  Her interactions with Bill Masters are far and away the highlights of this second episode.  I could do without the “possibility sequences” (the episode is shot with several scenes being presented as happening a few different ways, before they eventually play out as they actually happen.  It’s effective the first time as a small shock to the audience, but it’s also a bit juvenile and reminds me of something that would happen in Clueless or 10 Things I Hate About You) since all they really show is a character’s insecurities.  I’m far more interested in Caplan’s Virginia if she’s a woman of the 50s who ISN’T insecure.

Up to now, the show has been far too heavy.  The lighthearted moments are few, and since the subject matter is extremely dense even when it isn’t heavy on the science drama, I find myself pausing and restarting repeatedly to break up the dramatic weight.  Sex is funny, so there should be comedy in showing how uncomfortable discussing sex made people in the 50s.  And there are moments, like any time the giant glass dildo is shown.  They just aren’t exploited as a release valve for the crushing pressure of the dramatic intensity we are confronted with.  The answer is: SHOW THE GODDAMN GIANT GLASS DILDO MORE.  Annaleigh Ashford, playing the madam at Dr. Masters’ experimental cathouse, does serve as a ray of light through all the sexual gloom.  However, she’s only listed as being in two episodes.  I’d have to think that’s a mistake, since her story isn’t anywhere near resolved.  She’s a walking prostitutional cliché at this point (why not make the prostitute cultured and intelligent?  Haven’t we seen the gum-chomping whore with the Brooklyn accent enough?) but at least she forces her way through the morose malaise.

I’m holding out hope that Masters of Sex isn’t going to turn out to be a pulpy B+ movie that just happens to be 12 (or 24, or 36…) hours long.  I held out mentioning it as long as I could, but so far Liam Neeson’s Kinsey told the same story as Masters in a much more palatable manner, mostly so because I knew the story would be over an hour and a half after it started.  If Masters is only envisioned as a single season show, I can see it working to a limited degree.  However, as of the second episode, I can’t imagine a way for this to be interesting past the first season.  I’d love for the producers and writers to come up with a way to prove me wrong, but I’m not seeing it.

5/10

The post Masters of Sex S1E2 Review, “Race to Space” appeared first on screensnark..

“Pilot”

This past weekend, the scientific sexual revolution themed Masters of Sex debuted as Showtime’s next dip into the HBO-dominated premium cable arthouse ocean.  The show, based in the notoriously repressive 1950s (as much as the American 50s are regaled by so many as an idyllic utopia, there are dozens, if not hundreds of movies and TV shows that point out how prudish and racist and sexist and homophobic everyone was (maybe that says something about those who worship the 50s…) that features Lizzy Caplan as a recently divorced secretary with upward (and horizontal) ambitions and Michael Sheen as a prominent MD desperate to study sex while experiencing little joy in participating in it and demonstrating little understanding of any female motivations, pleasures, basically anything whatsoever.  The show is amusing enough, but needs a few nudges in the right direction.

About ten minutes into the pilot, anyone who has seen an episode of Mad Men will begin to make inevitable comparisons.  I won’t write off Masters of Sex after one episode, but the creators have to figure out a way to distance themselves from Mad Men pretty quickly, because they’re losing that battle.  Obviously the subject matter will be a little different, but there is enough of an overlap to the time period and the content that an unavoidable “Mad Men does this waaaaaay better” reaction is going to pop up.  There’s room in some genres for multiple shows airing alongside one another, but a relatively hypersexualized section of 1950s Americana isn’t one of them.

Masters of Sex probably could hope to achieve the distinction through character development, particularly with the strength of its leads.  Mad Men has always been more of a true ensemble rather that just the “story of Don Draper”, which has been largely successful.  Caplan and Sheen both bring immediate gravitas to their roles, and both characters have achieved admirable depth by the end of the first hour.  Most shows struggle with that accomplishment over the course of an entire series.  The secondary cast could use a little fleshing out, especially Nicholas D’Agosto as the aggressive, young up-and-coming (cumming?) doctor.  But I feel like I already know Masters’ wife, played by Caitlin Fitzgerald.  Beau Bridges is completed wasted in a guest spot as an angry administrator completely opposed to all things penis and vagina.  Why not just have John Lithgow reprise his Footloose role?  The roles of the two initial test subjects, who are rather nondescript and are introduced late enough  in the episode that I didn’t catch either of their names, are written and acted well enough that there is quite a bit of potential for both of them if the characters stick around.  Sexual nervousness can be difficult to project onscreen, and their scene together is entirely believable.

Also, there is a gigantic glass dildo that is hooked up to sensors that chart its effect on a woman’s body, and there is a shot from the pussy’s perspective of Beau Bridges watching it being used.  I’d say that’s probably a TV first.

Most of the pilot is run-of-the-mill, oh-my-god-talking-about-sex-in-the-50s, with the added bonus of plenty of gratuitous Showtime tits.  The cliffhanger ending, however, is probably jarring enough to carry over through the rest of the first season.  While not wholly unexpected, the manner with which Masters delivers his, well what does one call it?  Penis proposal?  Orgasm offer?  Basically Masters informs Virginia (Lizzy) that he believes that if they are to conduct proper sexual research, then they should be participating in the research, together.  The most scientifically proper booty call ever.  It really is a scene that catches the viewer off guard, and given that Masters knows that Virginia is fucking another doctor who beat her ass, and Virginia knows that Masters’ wife is participating in the study, it’s doubly shocking.  The scene alone lifted the episode from average to good, and definitely is enough to pique my interest in what happens next.  I’ll be looking forward to the next episode, and probably the rest of the season.

7/10

The post Masters of Sex S1E1 Review, “Pilot” appeared first on screensnark..