Warning: Full spoilers for the episode follow...
Masters of Sex returned for its third season with "Parliament of Owls," an episode that featured an even larger time leap forward than the three year jump contained in the middle of Season 2. This time we careened from '61 to '65 and caught up with Bill and Virginia as they presented their finished book to a room full of critics - while also flashing back to four months previous when the two of them and Libby, and all their assorted children, "relaxed" at a lake house.
So structurally, the show's still wobbly. Masters of Sex is a series with outstanding performances, but a needlessly shaky layout. Granted, it's trying to cover actual history and isn't a retro-show like Mad Men that didn't have to include anything creator/writer Matthew Weiner didn't want to. Still, time jumps like this can work to sharply sever a show from its former self. From what's been built up before it. There's a "reboot" feeling that comes with each one and that can become too much if done too often. Granted, I will say that a time leap at the top of a season like this one is a bit more acceptable than one in the center of a season. It's still jarring to see Henry and Tessa grown up and old enough to, respectively, be having sex or be doing things sexually inappropriate (funny to see Isabelle Fuhrman displaying shades of her role in Orphan though).
Continue reading…
Continue reading...
Masters of Sex returned for its third season with "Parliament of Owls," an episode that featured an even larger time leap forward than the three year jump contained in the middle of Season 2. This time we careened from '61 to '65 and caught up with Bill and Virginia as they presented their finished book to a room full of critics - while also flashing back to four months previous when the two of them and Libby, and all their assorted children, "relaxed" at a lake house.
So structurally, the show's still wobbly. Masters of Sex is a series with outstanding performances, but a needlessly shaky layout. Granted, it's trying to cover actual history and isn't a retro-show like Mad Men that didn't have to include anything creator/writer Matthew Weiner didn't want to. Still, time jumps like this can work to sharply sever a show from its former self. From what's been built up before it. There's a "reboot" feeling that comes with each one and that can become too much if done too often. Granted, I will say that a time leap at the top of a season like this one is a bit more acceptable than one in the center of a season. It's still jarring to see Henry and Tessa grown up and old enough to, respectively, be having sex or be doing things sexually inappropriate (funny to see Isabelle Fuhrman displaying shades of her role in Orphan though).
Continue reading…
Continue reading...