Sex, Lies and SHOW

My latest is up at http://broadstreetreview.com/cross-cultural/showtimes-masters-of-sex

It begins:
The third season of “Masters of Sex” has concluded stormily. To avoid spoilers, let me simply say that, after A left B for C, C left A for D; but D had already left C (and E) for F, who had left G for her. The series had entered viewers’ living rooms in September 2013 purporting to have been drawn from Thomas Maier’s 2009 book of the same name. That had been a serviceable account of the lives and work of William Masters, M.D., and Virginia Johnson, whose relationship had climaxed (double-entendre intended) with their earth-shaking (yup, guilty again) “Human Sexual Response,” which, in the words of an exuberant jacket-copy writer at Basic Books, had “changed the way we all thought about, talked about, and engaged in sex.” But the series had deviated so far from the book – and actuality – that the creators – or the network’s lawyers – came to add a disclaimer at the end of each episode that Bill and Virginia’s children, whom have been shown marching off to Vietnam or sleeping with their boyfriend or getting a parent investigated for child abuse were “entirely fictional.” (Which isn’t “entirely” true either, since Masters and Johnson each had a pair.)