The study of sex is the study of all life...
Between the critically-acclaimed Homeland and the resurgence of Dexter, Showtime has had a good year - but will 2013 be even better? Although both shows wrap up their current runs on December 16th, and in conjuction with returning big hitters Shameless, House of Lies and Californication, the cable channel is hoping viewers will keep tuning in on Sunday nights when they launch their new slate of shows in 2013. If the newly released first look promo for Masters of Sex is any indication, the cable network is off to a promising start. Although no official premiere date has yet be set, tonally the channel's latest venture, starring Emmy and BAFTA Award nominee Michael Sheen (Twilight series) and Lizzy Caplan (Party Down), appears saucier fare than its illustrious sablemates - focusing, as it does, "on the unusual lives, romance and pop culture trajectory of the real-life pioneers of the science of human sexuality", William Masters and Virginia Johnson. Their research touched off the sexual revolution and took them from a mid-western teaching hospital in St. Louis to the cover of Time magazine and nearly a dozen appearances on Johnny Carson’s couch.
Masters Of Sex marks Sheen’s first regular series role for television. In addition to starring, the Welsh actor best known for portraying Tony Blair and David Frost in films, and his manager Tammy Rosen will serve as producers on the show. Sheen is the latest feature actor tapped as the lead of a Showtime series follwoing the recent castings of Claire Danes in Homeland, Don Cheadle in House Of Lies, and Liev Schreiber in the pilot Ray Donovan. The project, written by Michelle Ashford (The Pacific) and directed by John Madden (Shakespeare In Love), is an adaptation of Thomas Maier’s book Masters of Sex: The Life and Times of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, The Couple Who Taught America How To Love. It also stars Caitlin Fitzgerald (It’s Complicated), in the role of Masters’ wife, Nicholas D’Agosto (Heroes) and Teddy Sears (American Horror Story). Beau Bridges and Margo Martindale also appear in the pilot.
The filming of the first season's 12 episodes will begin this January in Los Angeles, and will represent the epitome of what critics have called the Nevins-ization of Showtime. In place of half-hours centered on damaged 40-something women, in the network's pipeline is a broader variety of adrenaline-charged ensembles - darker, edgier and more culturally relevant - designed to appeal as much to males as they do females. For David Nevins (the network's president of entertainment) the strategy- which one agent describes as "more masculine, more entertaining, more adrenaline" than his predecessor's - marks a pointed diversion. Subversive characters remain a critical piece of the Showtime mandate, but with Nevins, there's a bigger push toward mass entertainment. He acknowledges that he largely shuns the slower-paced snootiness that has come to define a genre of cable, preferring instead what he describes as particularly relevant and broadly entertaining fare. "Things that really push the envelope and are a little bit on the dangerous side is something I'm open to," he says. "With the understanding that if something is going to be on pay cable, there has to be a reason for people to pay for it."
Nevins seems willing to roll up his sleeves to win those eyeballs, spending multiple days on the set of his pilots; it's one of the perks of working in cable, where far fewer projects are in production at any given time. He knows, first-hand, that Masters of Sex will have his new hallmarks of a Showtime show: masculinity, contemporariness and the kind of in-your-face sexual content that separates pay cable from even edgy programmes on FX and AMC. Showtime viewers, afterall, are no stranger to that onscreen raunchiness, having seen explicit sex scenes on Homeland (in a car), House of Lies (girl on girl in a bathroom) and Shameless (in a sink). It's a project that plays into the desire to offer what the other networks cannot with both its explicit language and many sex scenes; including, for example, an early one in which Masters observes a prostitute and her client having intercourse.
"I've been leery of doing period fare, but I think the subject is so specific, so provocative and so contemporary that I got over it," explains Nevins, who was urged to read the Maier book when he bumped into producer and longtime friend Sarah Timberman on a plane ride to New York shortly after taking the gig. "By the time the plane landed, I said, 'Yes, we have to do this,' and she said, 'I think I can get [The Pacific writer] Michelle Ashford, who both of us have known for a very long time,'" he recalls, adding "it was at the top of the list from that moment on."
One of the unspoken goals of Masters of Sex is to remind viewers that not so long ago, even clinical discussion of sex in terms of biology, psychology or physiology was considered bad form. When Showtime previewed the first clips from the show to TV critics, they played like a dramedy, with often-graphic re-creations of the experiments and snappy sitcom-like exchanges. What the series will not be, says Nevins, is a documentary about the researchers. "It’s serious stuff and you’ve got serious drama," insists Nevins. "Michael Sheen is a great dramatic actor. I wanted the pilot to reflect that it’s going to be fun and have wit to it. The script has enormous wit but the fundamentals do come from the book and it will continue to feed. They have 20-plus years together so the stuff of Thomas Maier’s book will continue to feed the series for years to come."
The pilot shows liberal nudity and sexual situations, though mostly revealing of the women. Nevins promised equal opportunity nudity down the line. "Yes, only fair," he answered when quizzed. In casting Sheen, Caplan and others, nudity was part of the deal. Some actors insisting on 'no nudity' clauses could not be considered. "That ruled out some people. A show like this, the subject is human sexuality so you have to be willing, you have to be comfortable to do it," he explains. As the reviewer from Hitfix exclaimed: "We see lots of clips of modern representations of sex. The pilot, directed by John Madden, has a great look, with its period setting and Michael Sheen seems amusing. This definitely looks much livelier than 'Kinsey'. Lizzy Caplan also looks terrific and... yes... nude. Beau Bridges looks interesting and funny and... not nude. I have no clue what this show is, but it definitely seems potentially smutty and arty and intriguing. And... lots of nudity. I mean... Starz-level nudity." For the AV Club, the fairly blatant depictions of sexual activity combined with lots and lots of solid laughs could make Masters of Sex "the weird sex comedy/period piece America didn’t know it wanted."
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