The Team on TV: Masters of Sex S3

Last week we kicked off a new weekly series in which we assemble a few rotating members of Team Experience to discuss various TV shows. Here's Dan, David, Deborah, and Manuel on discuss Masters of Sex - Editor
 

Dan: Hello everybody, welcome to our roundtable discussion on Masters Of Sex. I want to begin with a general topic: How do you all respond to time jumps in TV shows? Masters of Sex does this a lot, with several months often taking place offscreen either in between episodes or even during a single episode (S2's "Asterion" comes to mind). The second season ended in 1961, and this season began in 1966, skipping anything dealing with finding a publisher and marketing the study as a book. Did that throw you? Did you miss anything that would have been covered in the years we didn't get to see?

I was taken aback when it turned out Isabelle Fuhrman was Virginia's daughter Tessa, because last we saw Virginia had given up custody of her kids and Tessa was still a little girl. Now she's all grown and sneaking alcohol and drunkenly attempting to kiss Bill.... what happened to our sweet girl?

Deborah: Hi Dan and all!  I'm a Mad Men fanatic, so I don't mind time jumps in theory. But Masters of Sex has been clunky with it. A big time jump at the halfway point of a season (Asterion) is awkward. At the time, I wrote "Halfway through Season 2, Masters of Sex decides 'to hell with this.'" It was strange. Jumping forward between seasons is a more elegant way and it makes sense. Here's what doesn't make sense: The show clearly wanted to get to the publication of the book, because all the years of research for the book were bound to become repetitive. That being the case, now that they've brought us to the book, why put so much attention on Virginia's kids and Bill's marriage?

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FYC: Michael Sheen for Best Actor, Drama

Team Experience continues to share their picks for this year's Emmy nominations. Here's David on Michael Sheen.

If Lizzy Caplan's Virginia Johnson is the heart of Masters of Sex, Michael Sheen's Bill Masters is its head - its proud, dedicated, fearful psychosis, driving the narrative into a quagmire of sexual and social confusion. Virginia's emotion flows easily from her, but Bill's is buried beneath acres of childhood trauma built into cracked defences. He is akin to the other current TV icon of past American masculinity, Don Draper – and one episode even leaves him in the dark glow of a deserted office in a shot that could have come straight from Mad Men.

Sheen’s brilliance in the part is in how he retains the audience’s sympathy and investment despite his frequently frustrating episodes of stubbornness, anger, hypocrisy and cruelty. As Bill repeatedly contends, he "never meant to hurt anyone" - a clichéd excuse that is beautifully grounded in the reality of Sheen’s performance. Ironically, Bill is only really able to pull off an emotional façade in his most vulnerable moments, whether spitting cruel barbs back at his brother Frank or trying to shut out Virginia’s inquisitive gaze as she delves into his childhood (in the masterful third episode, ‘Fight’, set almost entirely in their hotel room).

Sheen and Lizzy Caplan in 'Fight'

Tasked with portraying such an intricate mind, it would have been easy for Sheen to make him inscrutable, shutting the audience out as spectators of Bill’s great intellect. Instead, Sheen delineates almost endless contradictions and conflicts while humanising a man who insistently refuses emotionality. As Bill discovers that his first patient needs to be himself, and as he opens up to Virginia, Sheen is careful not to abandon the inherent resistance of Bill’s nature to both of these developments, crafting a compelling and detailed story of a man more fascinating than his work. The defining moment of Sheen’s second season might be when Virginia orders him to strip before her – rarely do we see any man so controlled and exposed, but especially this one. 

Previously:
The Americans | Jane the Virgin | Cara Seymour, The Knick | Lisa Kudrow, The Comeback | Jon Hamm, Mad Men | Ruth Wilson, The Affair | Matt Czuchry, The Good Wife | Gwendolyn Christie, Game of Thrones | Lauren Weedman, Looking 

Review: Far From The Madding Crowd

In Far From the Madding Crowd, a new film adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s novel, every eligible man wants Carey Mulligan’s winsome Bathsheba. But she cannot be tamed! (Funny how commitment phobia reads as strength in a female protagonist and weakness in a male protagonist). Or at least she won’t “settle” for less than what she’s already planned for herself. Nevertheless the wanting continues and the camera, observes her, often at a distance as with a memorable shot of Bathsheba laying back from her saddle, as if enjoying the tactile and visual sensations of the powerful creature beneath her and the vibrant foliage and sky above her.

(This review contains a general trajectory ending spoiler but it is based on a 151 year-old classic novel.)

Three bachelors and Bathsheba's issues after the jump... 

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Beauty Vs Beast: The Two Jakes

JA from MNPP here - The year 2014 is halfway over and since Nathaniel seems to be having fun listing his picks for "the best of so-far" I felt like joining in - my favorite movie of the year here at the half-point is Denis Villeneuve's doppleganger creep-fest called Enemy, which stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Jake Gyllenhaal as two men (maybe?) who find each other (maybe?) through chance (uh... maybe?) and the destructive effect that this has on their lives (definitely).

If you didn't catch the film in theaters (I managed to twice but I realize I am extraordinarily priviledged for that; its release was a puzzler) it came out onto DVD and so forth two weeks ago, so hopefully you've set aside the time - as I said when I reviewed it way back when this movie is the dream of a movie I would be able to make if I were a movie-maker. It hits all my buttons and then some, including ones I never even knew about -- Jake Gyllenhaal ordering another Jake Gyllenhaal to take his clothes off? Sure!

On the surface this week's "Beauty Vs. Beast" might seem a trick question (and maybe it is, just like the whole movie might be a trick movie) but Jake's performance in the film does make Adam (the teacher who's with Melanie Laurent) and Anthony (the actor who's married to Sarah Gadon) two distinct men - it's usually not hard to tell who's who because of posture alone, and the differences only seem to branch out (and yes, perhaps double back...) from there. So have at 'em...

poll by twiigs.com

If you haven't seen the film now before voting my point is go watch the movie right now! And then vote. Of course a vote for Jake, any Jake, is a winning vote all the same. And on top of telling me which Team Jake you prefer in the comments I'd love to hear y'all's theories about the movie. This movie brings them forth!

PREVIOUSLY Last week we got ourselves pre-juiced for Showtime's Masters of Sex, which returns on July 13th, by asking y'all to choose between the Masters & Johnson at the show's heart - I can't say I was surprised to see that Lizzy Caplan bounces the highest on the bedsprings of most of our hearts. She walked away with a full 85% of the vote. Said par, getting a hearty chuckle outta me:

"I love her so much I'd even invite her to a pool party... even if there were going to be girls in bathing suits there."

Beauty vs Beast: Masters & Johnsons Of Sex

JA from MNPP here - I know I'm among my people here at The Film Experience when I stand up in front of you all, tap the mic, clear my throat, and admit that I, Jason Adams, being somewhat sound of mind and body (okay that part's questionable), am straight-up no-holds-barred infatuationally addicted to an actress. Her name is Elizabeth Anne Caplan, she goes by Lizzy, and she is basically everything. How could anyone say anything mean about Amy Adams, right? Adorable, kind, nose-wrinkling Amy Adams? Well I would roll Amy Adams up feet-first and stick her in an envelope and mail her to Timbuktu never to be heard from again if that meant I would get to see Lizzy Caplan play Lois Lane in a Superman movie. That's where we stand.

So today is my beloved's 32nd birthday, and so we're giving her today's "Beauty Vs. Beast" poll. I'm not sure how many of you are watching Showtime's Masters of Sex but I hope it's tons upon tons, because it's a great show stuffed with rich characters from top to top to bottom to bottom and every which way of sexual power dynamics. Michael Sheen's doing terrific work as the Platonian Ideal of the nightmare doctor with a god complex, but yeah... I think I've made it clear where my vote's going. You?

poll by twiigs.com

As always you've got one week to vote and to make your case for your pick in the comments. Oh and if you want to see the new trailer for the second season of Masters of Sex, which is back July 13th, watch it here.

PREVIOUSLY Last week we shot the Bat Signal over Gotham in honor of 25 years of Tim Burton's original movie and made you choose between Michael Keaton's dark knight and Jack Nicholson's candy-colored villain - it was tight-going with the Batman and the Joker fluctuating who was on top but in the end goodness vanquished evil and Keaton strolled off with 51% and the victory, heading off towards a bright future involving slinky cat-suits and lots of licking. There was a lot of diccussion about the Bat-Men versus the Jokers (Jokeri?), which Sad man summed up thus:

"Team Batman 100%. If it was Heath's Joker then I'd pick Joker. Also Keaton > Bale."