With “Boardwalk Empire,” “Tremé” and “The Walking Dead” all done for 2012, the Sunday night cable drama field is all Showtime’s for the next few weeks. The pay cable channel will try to take advantage of that by using Sunday’s episodes of “Dexter” and “Homeland” to run a first-look trailer (which is already available online; see below) for its two new 2013 drama offerings: “Masters of Sex” and “Ray Donovan.”
“Masters of Sex,” with a pilot directed by John Madden (“Shakespeare in Love”), is a period piece starring Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan as legendary sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson. “Ray Donovan,” meanwhile, stars Liev Schreiber as an L.A. fixer of problems for the rich and famous, but (because it’s what Fienberg likes to call a Vocational Irony Narrative) not for his own family, which includes Jon Voight as his ex-con father.
Neither show has an official premiere date yet, but “Ray Donovan” will be coming first (“Masters of Sex” doesn’t even start production until January), which no doubt means why it takes up 2/3 of the trailer. Showtime gave critics a more extended look at “Masters of Sex” at the summer press tour, and this version doesn’t really capture how funny it seemed.
Lots of interesting actors, at a minimum. Looking forward to seeing full pilots.