Showtime?s newest series, the provocatively titled ?Masters of Sex,? premiered its second episode, ?Race to Space,? this past Sunday and continues to expose itself as one of the must-watch shows of the fall TV season.The show centers on the real life sexologist research team of William Masters and Virginia Johnson at the start of their collaborative career in the 1950s. The premise sounds like it could be a ?Mad Men? rip-off with more nudity: it?s beautifully shot, has gorgeous period-appropriate costumes and there are several references to culturally important events. But instead of dealing with advertising focus groups like Don Draper, the main characters watch people have sex. Michael Sheen?s William Masters is a man who wants to study sex in the name of science, but he also knows nothing about it personally. His ego keeps him from telling his wife that he?s essentially infertile, and he approaches sex with her in the most clinical, unsexy way. The show?s biggest strength is Lizzy Caplan?s portrayal of Virginia Johnson. Caplan has always been typecast as a sarcastic but sweet girl with a thoroughly contemporary quality, evident by her roles in ?Mean Girls? and the short-lived series ?Party Down.? In ?Masters,? her presence could seem anachronistic, but Virginia is too ahead of her time. She takes charge of her sexuality but is not overly crass or defeminized. The constant criticism for changing her career and taking classes while raising her kids, mostly from other women, shows us how alienating society must have been for ?modern? women.?Masters of Sex? is off to a very promising start. The nature of its content organically brings out several humorous moments. In the pilot episode we had the nice sight gag of Beau Bridges? character Barton Scully holding an internally lit glass dildo. It?s moments like these that remind us that while they, the sexologists, are doing something groundbreaking, it was considered rather frivolous and may not be the noblest sector of the scientific world. It will be interesting to see the development of both the portrayal of the research alongside the changing attitudes toward sex as ?Masters of Sex? continues to build itself as one of the most stimulating shows in Showtime?s line-up in a long time.
