The performances are, in a word, stimulating. Sheen has made a great career for himself playing real-life people (Tony Blair, David Frost, Brian Clough) and this series could be yet another blistering portrayal of a non-fictional character. One should look forward to explore how the introverted doctor slowly breaks open a new side as the studies become more intensive. He does not want to divulge his kinkier work with his wife, but is frank with Johnson and their subjects. Watching Sheen navigate this division between his private home life and his very revealing scientific work should make for an intriguing character study.
However, the real find here is Caplan, a smart and perceptive actress playing a character who, juxtaposing Masters, is an extrovert still coming to terms with her own sexual development. She feels free with her lover, which in this episode is a co-worker of Masters named Ethan Haas (Nicholas D’Agosto). During her lovemaking, she tells him to orally please her. “The circle of giving doesn’t go one way,” she states. Nevertheless, by the episode’s end, she questions whether her sexual conquests have any meaning at all, when Haas rips into her for using him as a simple prop to occupy her time.
Masters of Sex is adult entertainment of the best kind, a mix of stellar performances and scintillating subject matter. It is briskly paced, since the pilot eventually has to end at a moment that brings Masters and Johnson together as a team. Perhaps it moves a little too quickly though, since their pairing must be established by the episode’s end and the duo only share a few scenes together. Hopefully future hours of the cable drama will take more time to explore the troubled marital life between the Masters.
Meanwhile, the period details, such as the swanky jazz music and costumes, are spot-on, even if the sets don’t feel as lived-in as the offices on other dramas set around the same time, like Mad Men or BBC’s The Hour.
The most impressive feature of Masters of Sex’s pilot, though, is that it uses the study of sexual behaviour as a way to study the lives of its two protagonists. Masters and Johnson may not be undertaking the study just for the majesty of science, but to learn about themselves and their own needs as men and women in an evolving American society. Here is a promising series worth devouring. Just don’t come strictly for the sex.