Mastery

From a season premiere review of Boardwalk Empire to a mid-season review of Masters of Sex this week. On the face of it, these two shows don’t have much in common but they actually share a common literary device: the time skip.  Writing last week, I mused that the time skip left the season premiere viewers of Boardwalk Empire feeling disorientated. This was exacerbated further by the use of flashbacks in the same episode. It’s worth noting that although the flashbacks returned in episode two, The Good Listener, it was a much more coherently structured episode. The same unfortunately cannot be said for Masters of Sex.

American readers of this blog are probably a little confused because by their schedule Masters of Sex’s second season is due to climax in two weeks on September 28th. No, I’m not late to the party, I’ve just been following the season’s progression on the British television channel, More4. As with most shows that are exported to Britain and aren’t shown on SKY, More4 are running behind by a few episodes. The specific episode that I’m talking about here is Asterion, episode 7 of 12 in the second season. All good? With that confusion cleared up, let’s move on to the next confusion.

Masters of Sex, to its credit, did not skip quite as many years as Boardwalk Empire. It wasn’t the quantity of time that was jumped but rather the frequency of the jumps that occurred. The episode covers three years worth of material, shoving it all into one episode and rather than leaping over all the years at once, the show jolts from one year to next periodically throughout. And, again, in fairness, the show came up with a very cinematic and unobtrusive way to depict the skip; Betty would walk through the lobby of their new office, pointing out changes to different clients. In the words of the infamous Dr. Gregory House “Walking gives the illusion of the story moving forward.”

Maybe their new offices are located in a TARDIS.

That being said, it was mildly disturbing to witness Bill Masters wife, Libby, stroll through the lobby with one child, get in an elevator and come out with two children. While Bill and Libby discuss having more children earlier in the episode it was still quite a shock to see it happen without warning. There is an on screen indication of the year but it doesn’t accompany the actual jump. Again, the show presents the year in a very self-aware fashion, having the resident videographer holding up a clapperboard with the date written on it. It’s a nice touch and I commend the writers for doing something different but it comes a little late in helping the audience adjust to the sudden shift.

Furthermore there is a lot of content being crammed into this 60 minute episode. Rather than spoiling it for those who plan to binge watch after the season is finished, I will say there is enough in this one episode to fill at least another half season. The aforementioned birth of a second child, which I only mentioned because it isn’t treated seriously at all, could easily have been the subject material for the rest of this second season. Instead it goes something like ‘I want a kid, bam, a kid is granted’ as though the characters in Masters of Sex managed to tap into some kind of god mode cheat code. Actually that would kind of make sense. The time skips are just the game glitching out.

Not all of the material in the episode is so lucky. While some could have been the basis for more episodes, some events in the episode got stretched rather thin to the point where it doesn’t make much sense. Bill is upset with Virginia and even though they work with each other for three years they somehow manage to not reconcile until 1960. That’s completely unprecedented. Bill and Virginia have had their fair share of arguments in the past season and a half but nothing so brutal that it took years for them to recover. Honestly, it didn’t feel like this argument was really that life changing that it couldn’t have been settled in a week or two as well.

Get ready to reacquaint yourself with a whole new body of time.

It’s more disappointing than legitimately bad. If the show had to do a time skip, then sure, this was a novel way to present it but I’m not sure a time skip was necessary. By jumping ahead we missed out on possible answers to how Libby got pregnant for the second time and whether the kid was actually his. Seems unlikely given that Bill seemed to have trouble getting off when he wasn’t with Virginia. Maybe it will be addressed in a later episode but if you have to deal with the issue anyway then why bother jumping forward? And Virginia’s constant parade of partners, whose names she forgets, only serves to make Bill’s assessment of her as irresponsible to her children correct, an attribute for her character that comes out of nowhere due to the fast pace of the episode. Previously Virginia was shown to be sexually liberal but she always put her kids first. For the show to suddenly brand her as not caring enough for her children simply came across as cheap.

Season one of Masters of Sex was great. The story it told was intriguing, broaching a subject matter within a time period that it had never been examined before. And, aside from the history, Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan delivered some superb acting in their main roles, with good performances from the supporting cast too, especially Annaleigh Ashford. The second season hasn’t been quite as enthralling. The acting is still great and the scenes between Sheen and Caplan continue to be the best in the show but some really odd storylines for Libby Masters and the total abandonment of Barton Scully’s homosexuality plot has left the second season feeling more than a little scattered and unfocused.

Perhaps  Asterion was intended to be something of a reset button for the season. It certainly felt more like the first episode of a season rather than a typical mid-season episode. That’s no bad thing but while the intentions were good, it just didn’t come together quite how they wanted it. Hopefully the show can get back on track. With a third season already confirmed ( Asterion was actually the first episode to air after that announcement) Masters of Sex should consider directing their attention solely to creating powerful storylines with captivating characters. Or, at the very least, don’t toss all of your cinematography tricks into one episode.

Location

Location, location, location; That is usually the mantra of property sellers and estate agents but for the past two nights it has also been the deciding factor in the preliminary tasks for this years The Apprentice. On Tuesday, Jaz Ampaw Farr was fired when she decided to walk the streets, attempting to sell lucky cats to anyone who would give her the time of day, and on Wednesday, boyish Tim Stillwell failed to put the foot down and instead gave in to popular demand. Indeed, The Apprentice is back and this year’s bunch of hopefuls brought the crazy by the bucket load.

For once, however, it isn’t the females who are loud and backstabbing. It is the men who have proven to be the most derisive and haughty this time around. Truthfully, I was actually rather impressed that so many of the girls actively leapt to Tim’s defence when the failure of their beer brewing task was pinned on him. If that had been the men, they would have thrown him under the bus before he could apologise, no matter how rapidly he speaks. The award for arrogance definitely goes to Neil Clough, whose every other breath is him taking credit for something, no matter how small or trivial. I realise this is a competition and that you not only need to make yourself heard but also need to make Lord Sugar aware of your contributions, however, he doesn’t need to tell the group or the camera what he did or did not come up with. We already know. We saw it happen. And ‘A Bitter This’ is nothing to be proud of.

Coming in close second to Neil for arrogance though was Kurt Wilson. He was so narrow-minded that he refused to even listen to the side team on two separate occasions. First, he ignored complaints that the manufacturing team that none of them actually liked or drank beer and secondly, rather than listening to their suggestions, he dictated the ingredients to them. There wasn’t any consideration at all for what they were saying; he just completely shut them down. Also, he should have accepted some responsibility for not sending samples with the sub-team. They probably should have asked but as manager it was his role to make certain they had samples.

Which crazy person will Lord sugar invest in this year?

Honestly, I am completely surprised that the male dominated team as managed to win the first two tasks in a row. Miles Mordaunt, Welshman Alex Mills and Zeeshaan Shah are all extremely loud and aggressive. It is fair enough to assume that, in this kind of competitive business situation, one might need to speak up in order to be heard but these guys, along with Kurt and Neil, are rather two-faced. They will say one thing and then conspire with the others that such and such is a terrible candidate or a horrible leader. Usually, we have to wait until a team loses and heads into the boardroom to hear what they really think but the men are so vindictive that as soon as Lord Sugar asks a question they are already zeroing in on who to target.

It seems as though a lot of the men are playing a long game in this show but I have a feeling that will only last as long as they keep winning. When it comes to the boardroom, Lord Sugar, Karen Brady and Nick Hewer can usually sniff out when someone is playing a game and those kinds of people never win this show. In fact, if season seven’s Tom Pellereau is anything to go by, Jason Leech may be a dark horse. I’m kidding because I really won’t be surprised if he will be the first to go when the men finally lose a task. Partly because everyone will throw him under the bus but also because, as Ed Byrne stated on the after show The Apprentice: You’re Fired, he has good business ethics but no actual business skills.

Despite the Endeavour’s horrible team, they have managed to not really work together and still pull out two consecutive wins. It is easy to see where Evolve went wrong in the first task. They didn’t sell all of their stock and the main team, led by project manager Jaz Ampaw Farr, failed to pre-decide locations where they could sell their wares. The second task is less clear. Location was undoubtedly a major part of it, as Rebecca Slater certainly did press the idea of the Kent Beer Festival but no one really spoke out against her and not strongly enough. And the beer festival is an honest mistake. I would have chosen it over the fresh fruits festival and it was simply unfortunate that the festival was smaller than anticipated. However, Evolve was able to sell their kegs to bars and other such establishments for almost twenty pounds more than Endeavour did. One must wonder that, if Francesca Macduff hadn’t fluffed the numbers twice, would have had more kegs to sell? Of course, the blame can’t fall entirely on Francesca. There was an entire manufacturing team in the room and if Tim Stillwell assigned her to the figures then perhaps he should have checked that she was actually capable at maths beforehand.

Bad luck Tim; wants to start a drinks company, can’t sell beer.

One of the most impressive candidates so far has to be Leah Totton. Originally from Northern Ireland but now living in London and working as a Doctor, Leah was the sub-team leader for the first task and efficiently organised the team into different roles. Thanks to that strategy, Evolve’s failure in the first task wasn’t a complete disaster. She also impressed in sales during the beer task although she didn’t quite match Rebecca. Another candidate that I think could end up stealing the show is Luisa Zissman. Sure, she is the loudest and most catty of all the females but she’s also a real dark horse. A lot of people seem to underestimate her but she has proved on both tasks that she can sell. I’ll be interested to see if she can lead when she becomes project manager because that will tip the scales.

And with that The Apprentice is back with a bang. Reports are that this season’s premiere is down in ratings but these two episodes have actually been the most enjoyable within recent memory. Not since Susan Ma’s ‘Do the French love their children?’ has it been this much fun to watch people torpedo their careers on national television.

P.S. I was rather surprised that it was Angie who was eliminated from American Idol this week but I’m also glad Kree Harrison remained in the competition as I think, out of those two, she has the most potential for world wide success. Candice Glover is still the favourite to win. It was no surprise that Randy Jackson is leaving, though I hope rumours that the entire panel is to be replaced are false. Let Mariah Carey go and keep Nicki and Keith.