Since the executives at every cable network are apparently engaged in an extended champagne bender stretching between last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys and next Monday’s Primetime Emmy Awards, the programmers at the most prominent networks are renewing series with drunken abandon. Third season for Rectify? Absolutely! A second round of Halt And Catch Fires? That’s not some sort of flaming shot, is it? Well then sure, why the hell not. And since Showtime is the official network of “I’ll tell you when I’ve had enough” (of Dexter or Weeds or The Big C or Californication or The Outer Limits remake that ran for seven goddamn years), third seasons of Masters Of Sex and Ray Donovan are on the house, with a nominal subscription fee!
Specifically, they’re on Showtime president David Nevins, who chased the buzz of Allison Janney’s Emmy win for Masters with the statement “Both Ray Donovan and Masters Of Sex are quintessentially Showtime: bold, provocative, premium television with production values at the top of the food chain.” (The pending Emmy nominations for Lizzy Caplan and Jon Voight don’t hurt, either.) The series have also expanded their audiences in season two: Masters Of Sex is averaging 4 million viewers per week to Ray Donovan’s 5 million. That’s with all viewing platforms accounted for–and they better be accounted for, because nobody’s cheaping out on this tab! Now somebody go find HBO and make sure they’re not drunk-texting George R.R. Martin. The man has some writing to do.