When Does Masters of Sex Season 5 Come Out? Is It Renewed?

What is Masters of Sex about?

Masters of Sex is built on a genuinely interesting true story: two researchers who mapped human sexual response in the 1950s and 60s, a subject so taboo that their work became a cultural phenomenon. But the show is really about two brilliant, difficult people trying to do important work while their personal lives fracture around them. Michael Sheen brings a convincing stiffness to William Masters, a man who understands the body's mechanics better than his own emotional terrain. Lizzy Caplan, as Virginia Johnson, carries most of the show's moral weight, playing a woman navigating ambition, desire, and the simple fact of being taken seriously in a male-dominated field.

The tone is serious and adult in the way some Showtime dramas once were, willing to sit with awkwardness and disappointment rather than manufacture crisis. What makes the show distinctive is how it uses sex research as a lens for examining fidelity, the gap between public reputation and private truth, and what it costs to pioneer anything. The show doesn't shy from the messy reality that doing important work doesn't make you a good partner or even a good person. It's not always comfortable viewing, which is exactly the point.

Critics generally received it warmly, and the performances drew particular praise, though the show never quite became the cultural touchstone its premise suggested it might be. The writing sometimes got tangled in soap opera plotting, and by its fourth season the narrative felt strained, reaching toward drama that didn't quite land. Still, for most of its run it was intelligent television about intelligent people, which is rarer than it should be. The show ended quietly rather than triumphantly, which feels honest but leaves you wishing it had found a sharper final act to match what came before.

Created by Michelle Ashford

Is Masters of Sex renewed or cancelled?

Why was Masters of Sex cancelled?

Masters of Sex arrived on Showtime with serious ambitions and immediate critical respect. The show built a loyal audience interested in its unflinching examination of sex research in 1960s America, anchored by strong performances from Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan. For a premium cable drama in that era, a 7.9 rating on IMDb suggested the show had found its core viewers. Yet critical acclaim and quality alone do not sustain a series on premium networks, which operate on different economics than broadcast television. Showtime needed not just good shows but shows that could attract and retain subscribers in a market becoming increasingly crowded.

The network cancelled Masters of Sex after four seasons because the audience, while devoted, had stopped growing. The show had reached a plateau in its viewership trajectory, which is common for prestige dramas on cable. Showtime made the calculation that continuing the series would not meaningfully move the needle on subscriptions, and the resources required to produce another season would be better deployed elsewhere. This was the reality of premium cable in 2016: a show could be well-made and well-reviewed but still considered too niche or too expensive relative to its subscriber impact.

The cancellation was disappointing given how much story remained to explore in the lives of Masters and Johnson. But Showtime's decision reflected a shift toward prioritizing shows with broader appeal or higher cultural momentum. The network wanted hits that could compete with what other streamers and services were beginning to offer, and a period drama about two research scientists, however intelligent and compelling, could not fill that role in their strategy.

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