Showtime renews ‘Ray Donovan,’ ‘Masters of Sex’ for fourth seasons

Ray Donovan stars Liev Schreiber as the title character, a “fixer” based in Los Angeles who has trouble solving his own family issues. The cast also includes Jon Voight, who won a Golden Globe last year for playing Mickey Donovan; Paula Malcomson; Eddie Marsan; Steve Bauer; and Katherine Moennig.

Masters of Sex will also be back for a fourth year. The series is inspired by the work of Dr. William Masters and Virginia Johnson. Michael Sheen stars as Masters and Lizzy Caplan is Johnson.

The renewal news came during Showtime’s TCA press tour panel. Masters’ current season does feature a twist in the story, with Johnson’s unexpected pregnancy. According to TVLine, executive producers Michelle Ashford and Sarah Timberman explained that this is due to legal reasons. Indeed, at the end of every episode, there is a warning that the children characters are completely fictional.

“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,” Ashford explained. “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.”