Welcome

Welcome to my ever-evolving blog. It started out as a blog on Beachbody workouts and products, mainly when I was a Beachbody coach. I no longer coach, not because I don't believe in Beachbody's programs (I subscribe to Beachbody on Demand and use their workouts every day), I am just not a salesperson and hated that aspect of it. I am more than willing to answer questions about my experiences with their products and the various workouts, and I feel freer to do so without the appearance of giving a biased review of something.

I have also started adding reviews for various things I have purchased like movies, books, CDs, and other products. This was brought about by a fight with Amazon in which all of my reviews were removed over a completely bullshit allegation that I posted a review that violated their terms of service. After going back and forth with the morons in the community-reviews department (even after they admitted that my posts did not violate their guidelines) they restored my account (which took them six months to do), but I have been posting my reviews on my blog to have them preserved in case something like that happens again. And here, I will post uncensored reviews so I will swear from time to time and post reviews that may be longer than Amazon's character limit. Everything I post here on any topic or product is my personal opinion, and I take no compensation for any product reviews I post. I am a member of Amazon's vine program and because I get those products for free, I keep those reviews on Amazon only, but everything I have purchased with my own money, whether from Amazon or some other store/website/outlet, I will post here.  

I also plan to do some longer blog posts on various topics, such as how to learn physics, how to get through calculus, and longer reviews of workout programs as I do them. Basically, whatever strikes me as interesting at the time.  As you can see if you navigate around the blog, I had many years in between postings. During that time I was going back to school to get an engineering degree, and learning material that I avoided my first time through college was a different experience and one that gave me a lot of insight into how to do well in those classes, which I will try to impart here for those who are looking to get a science or engineering degree. 

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

Blu-Ray/TV Series Review: Masters of Sex: Season 1

 



The first season of Masters of Sex aired on Showtime and consisted of 12 episodes that aired during the fall and winter of 2103. The show is a fictionalized telling of the famous Masters and Johnson sex study. It stars Michael Sheen as William Masters, who is a physician and researcher at Washington University in Missouri. He proposes to launch a study on human sexuality. Of course, this being the 1950s in an extremely conservative state, his proposal is shot down, but he starts the study in secret, hiring Virginia Johnson (played wonderfully by Lizzy Caplan) as his assistant. They recruit a variety of people, including prostitutes, hospital staff, and intrigued couples. Despite the title, the show is definitely not tawdry. There is a lot of sex and nudity, of course, but much of the focus of the show is on the interrelationships between various characters and shows the toll that the research takes on the personal lives of both Masters and Johnson, especially Masters' relationship with his wife Libby (played by Caitlin Fitzgerald) who is unable to conceive a child, and Virginia's kids missing their mother. The show has a strong supporting cast that has a mix of recognizable but not necessarily well-known actors such as Teddy Sears, Nicholas D'Agosto, Annaleigh Ashford, and Rose McIver, and established actors such as Beau Bridges and Allison Janney.

The Blu-Ray set is a four-disc set with the 12 episodes spread over the four discs. The A/V quality of the blu-ray is very good, and the set has a decent amount of bonus content. The extras include a commentary track on the pilot episode with Sheen, Caplan, Fitzgerald, Sears, series creator Michelle Ashford, and executive producer Sarah Timberman, about thirteen minutes of deleted scenes, and a series of making-of featurettes that total over twenty-five minutes between them all that include interviews with the cast and showrunners.

Overall, the show is very well-written and acted. The show not only tackles the subject of sex and the stigma that it had not only in the 1950s but really exists to this day, but it also touches on the topics of racism, homosexuality, misogyny, and more. There is a lot of nudity, sexual content, and swearing, but chances are people who would not want to see that kind of stuff are not likely to be considering purchasing this anyway. But, needless to say, it is not something that is a family-friendly show. While it does fall into the category of a docu-drama, the show does embellish some things about the actual events, so if you are looking for something that is more documentary than drama, this is not it. But if you are looking for a good, well-acted adult drama, this is definitely worth checking out.

Just as a note, the series had a total of four seasons. The first two were released on Blu-Ray individually in the US, the third and fourth were not. The entire series was released as a Blu-Ray box set that has the same extras and bonus material as the first and second season individual releases. So, if you get this and then want the entire series, you would have to double dip.

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