'Masters of Sex' review: Showtime scores

But in the early-years portrayal here by canny actors Michael Sheen ("Frost/Nixon," "The Queen") and Lizzy Caplan ("Party Down," "New Girl"), these figures are hardly masters of their own domain. When they meet in 1956, Masters is a clinical prig who is shocked to learn women fake orgasms, whose intimate life with his own wife dispassionately requires the "most effective position" for conception. Younger and livelier, former lounge singer Johnson is a pragmatic divorcee who craves sex because it feels good, who itches to do something more than "hitch her wagon" to another man.

What will it take for them to shock society through electrode wires attached to subjects observed in sexual activity? Brothel clinics. An elongated glass-enclosed peeping camera named Ulysses. And blackmail of various kinds. Who said collecting "physiological data" was simple?

Humor is also key in the capacious pilot hour directed by John Madden ("Shakespeare in Love"). Subsequent episodes echo its deft balance of epic scope and whimsical humanity. Sure, there's naked skin in graphic activity here. But salacious, it's not.