‘Masters of Sex’ season 3 storyline involving Virginia’s baby done for legal reasons

While there have been many movies done over the years regarding true stories, admittedly TV shows have rarely ventured to tell something from history in the way that Showtime has with “Masters of Sex.” As a result of this, we are running here and there into a variety of different issues that can easily be described as “complications.”

The story that we learned today is among the most interesting ones that we’ve heard. As executive producer Michelle Ashford told reporters today at the TCA Summer Press Tour, the story regarding Virginia’s unplanned pregnancy this season was one that was actually added for legal reasons, and not creative ones. (This was a departure from Virginia and Bill’s true story.) Take a look at her explanation, via TVLine:

“We are telling a non-fiction story and one where there are people who are still alive out there, and those people need to be protected … That is way of protecting them.

“We were advised to add [the baby] to protect the people that are still alive. It wasn’t a storytelling prerogative. It had to do with protecting living people.”

Our interpretation of this is simply that maybe Virginia’s living descendants did not want to face any direct comparisons to anything that happened on the show, which is mostly just following the spirit of Masters and Johnson’s lives more so than every event perfectly. This is something that we have taken close care of over the years, given that many characters were created specifically for the purpose of this show.

Ultimately, we have no real problem with this given that “Masters of Sex” never really struck us as a perfect historical representation, and is meant mostly as entertainment first and foremost.