Love, Lust, Control, and Respecting the Women in your Life

Perhaps stories about love and lust are always, in some way, stories about relinquishing control—letting go or giving control to someone else.  We have here two shows that highlight the relationship between sex and control—in one, people strive unsuccessfully for control as they surround themselves with the science of sex; and in the other, two people give in to their adulterous desires with predictably complicating results.   The shows don’t have much else in common—one is “quality” drama and the other is “sexy” drama (although both categories, and these shows' spots in them. are subject to debate).  But there is one other significant commonality.  Both shows highlight the fact that men really only hurt themselves when they underestimate, or take for granted, the women in their lives.  (The same may be true for women who do the same to their men, but that theory is untested in these shows.)  Of course, love and respect should go together.  Perhaps lust and respect should, but sometimes they don’t.  And perhaps that’s what we can learn from comparing these shows:  that lust without respect just isn’t that interesting.

Masters of Sex (Showtime, new.  Drama.)

Watched: first two episodes

Premise: The story of Masters and Johnson, a pair of medical researchers in the 1950’s who launch an early empirical study into human sexual response.

Promise: It sounds like the setup for a Skinemax porno, but although it’s sexy at times, it’s fundamentally a character-driven period drama about medical researchers in the 1950s.  The female lead is a sexually liberated, professionally ambitious woman in an era when few women publicly admitted to being either. She maneuvers to get what she wants, and then faces the undeserved, albeit not unlikely, consequences of her actions.   The male lead is a doctor who’s more passionate about the study of sex than about the having of it.  He wants to understand women’s physical sexual response, but has very little interest in understanding women themselves.  His ego and intellect mean he is smart enough to convince himself that his selfish, often cruel decisions are for the benefit of others.  The others are interesting too—the doctor’s wife; a prostitute who helps him with the study; and NicholasD’Agosto (of whom I’ve long been a fan) as a sexist cad who wants more of a relationship, or perhaps just more control over the woman in it, than the friends-with-benefits arrangement he’s offered.  All of them strive for a sort of control over their environment that they just can’t have, and that is the core of the show—strive as we might, we are all, ultimately, at the mercy of each other. 

The show is, in large part, about gender inequality and normative gender expectations.  But unlike many shows in the "quality" genre that hard-sell gender inequality, this one doesn't also appear to champion it.  In general, the women are competent and have their own wills.  They’re often punished for that competence or will, or for their trust in others, but the show never implies that the punishment is just, only consequential.  Regarding sex, the shows views seem to be a bit complicated.  Although the premise of the show is that marriage, love, and sex don’t (and shouldn't) always go together, its moral is that sexual liberation isn’t a panacea.  It’s not sex-negative so much as it’s considerateness-positive, but its implicit message is that without communication, neither sex nor marriage is likely to be a good idea.  In other words, until people learn to respect and appreciate each other, they’ll never be able to achieve quite what they want.  And who am I to reject that message?  

Verdict:  So far, it remains interesting.  It’s right on the border of the sort of drama that I find more “good” than “interesting,” but at this stage it’s both.  I’m willing to give it a continued try.

Betrayal (ABC, new.  Drama.)

Watched: Pilot

Premise:  Anatomy of an extramarital affair between a prosecutor’s wife and a mobster’s attorney.

Promise:  It's not a terribly new concept:  a woman and a man—each already married—meet and experience instant, irresistible chemistry that leads them into an extramarital affair.  Here, they meet as photographer and gallery-goer, respectively; it isn’t until late in the pilot that we discover the facts that make their affair a particularly inopportune match.  I’m not a huge fan of infidelity stories—I don’t enjoy watching people lie for selfish reasons—but they can be done well, and when they are, I’m willing to enjoy them.  So I was ready to give this show the benefit of the soapy doubt.  “Lust is a force beyond our control” isn’t the worst theme ever, although it’s certainly not a particularly original one.   

And although this show isn’t terribly original, it also isn’t bad, exactly…it just isn’t good in any particular way.  The characters’ lives and emotions are complex enough for them to be human, but none of them are particularly distinctive.  They’re all different varieties of blah or unlikeable … and they’re not quite hateable enough for me to wish them ill, either.  So we’re left with the story of a bunch of people we don’t particularly care about one way or the other.  It may be possible to make a satisfying story about such people, but I don’t have confidence that this will do that, either.  It’s a driving narrative, but I’m not sure I care what it’s driving toward. I don’t happen to watch True Blood or Revenge, but both of them have sort of a “guilty pleasure” juiciness that makes them appealing even if they aren’t particularly satisfying stories.  This show doesn’t have that, either.  One reason, I suspect, is that both parties have children—which means the consequences of their affair, whatever they may be, will fall on their innocent children as well as their (apparently unappreciative) spouses.  To up the drama, the show foreshadows that someone will shoot the female lead 6 months from now—we aren’t told who, or why, or whether she will live.  I suppose the foreshadowing is supposed to give us something to be curious about, but instead it seems a bit gratuitous. In fact, the whole show seems a bit gratuitous.

Verdict:  Not much to recommend it unless you’re a big fan of infidelity stories.

On the DVR: Lucky 7 (canceled), Sean Saves the World, Witches of East End, Reign, @Midnight, and Ravenswood  (recording tonight)