Just a quick glance at the names of the two leads of Showtime’s new show “Masters of Sex” is enough to get us a little bit excited. Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan are those two names, and being that it’s generally a delight any time either of them show up on the big or small screen our interest was immediately piqued when we saw they were starring alongside each other. Well, now we’ve got our first look at the show thanks to a trailer that presents it alongside another one of their new dramas, “Ray Donovan” which boasts a similarly great lead in Liev Schreiber but tonally seems extremely different to "Masters of Sex."
Caplan and Sheen are playing Masters and Johnson, a pair of characters based on two real-life pioneers of the science of human sexuality. It seems like a really fun concept (kind of like “Hysteria” but with a much wider scope, though probably with just as many handjobs) and one that Sheen and Caplan can have bags of fun with. The trailer seems really promising (we’ll be delighted if Beau Bridges features heavily too), and given that Showtime already have a show that mixes sex and comedy successfully in “Californication,” there’s decent pedigree to suggest that they could have another hit on their hands.
The show will arrive in the New Year after programs like the hugely successful “Homeland” have wrapped their current seasons, and we’re eager to see if it can live up to the promise. See what you think of the trailer, and you can check out “Ray Donovan” at the same time which we can only assume will be much better than its awful, uninspired title. [CinemaBlend]