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

 

Masters of Sex 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.

For those who get the Blu-Ray set, the 12 episodes are spread over four discs. 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. So, not a ton of extras, but what was included was good.

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 touched 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.