'Nip/Tuck' Has Shock Genre All Sewn Up
FX Drama Revels in Gross Anatomy
by By Tom Shales

Some of us are beginning to miss the days when TV programming was
called too bland and innocuous. At least it rarely gave you
nightmares or sent you running for your Rolaids. But the population
explosion in cable networks makes it harder and harder for channels
to get your attention. And so they try shock tactics in their efforts
to be noticed.

"Nip/Tuck,'' a new drama series from the FX network about the
personal and professional lives of two Miami plastic surgeons, is one
of the most shocking shockers ever. FX will preface it with a
parental guidance warning -- TV-MA, the rough equivalent of a
movie "R" -- and is airing it at the relatively late hour of 10 p.m.
starting tonight. But even forewarned adults may find the show too
graphic and blunt to qualify as acceptable.

You don't have to be squeamish to prefer in-your-home entertainment
that isn't also in-your-face.

Ryan Murphy, who created the series and wrote and directed the 90-
minute pilot, certainly isn't sneaky. He socks it to you right off
the bat. In one of the opening scenes, we see a pair of bloody naked
buttocks from which a surgeon casually removes a misplaced silicone
implant. Only a few minutes later, there are two intercut sex scenes,
one a passionate physical romp and the other a perfunctory and
listless exercise.

That's by way of establishing the two contrasting main characters,
longtime friends who are both doctors and partners in a thriving
plastic surgery business. Dr. Sean McNamara, played by Dylan Walsh,
is a married father of two who seems to be just going through the
motions whether in the operating room or the bedroom. Dr. Christian
Troy, played by Julian McMahon, is a swinging single who believes in
lifting as many faces and bobbing as many noses as possible in order
to keep the cash flow as bounteous as the blood flow. He also
considers his partner to be a "robot."

McNamara suffers a painful epiphany in the opening installment after
hearing a lecture from a mother whose son was badly disfigured in an
accident and who turns to the doctors for help but can't afford their
sky-high fees. McNamara feels ashamed that the docs are catering to
the whims of the wealthy and self-indulgent; he tells his
partner, "What we do here is let people externalize the hate they
feel about themselves."

To complicate matters, McNamara's wife, Julia, played by impressive
television newcomer Joely Richardson, wants work done on her own
breasts, and his 17-year-old son Matt, played by John Hensley, has
decided it's time to be circumcised. According to story lines for
upcoming episodes as supplied by the network, in a couple of weeks
from now "Sean and Julia are shocked when they find that their son
has taken his penis problems into his own hands." Oh dear.

In the same episode (No. 3), "Julia is forced to undergo anger
management class by the police for the gerbil that she has flushed
down the toilet."

If you are thinking "oh, brother," right now, that's what this critic
was also thinking the deeper he got into the opening episode. Writer-
director Murphy seems willing to do anything to startle viewers and
introduce outrageous elements into the script, but as he pushes the
envelope up, down, backwards and sideways, the characters become less
and less believable. It becomes shock for shock's sake and, in
addition, extremely overwrought, with lots of screamed accusations
and lamentations.

The language used includes four-letter words that have become less
uncommon on TV in recent years but even so are employed to excess
here, and the graphic nature of the surgical sequences will make
noshing on the couch impossible for all but the most impervious
viewers. One sequence near the end isn't just a bloodbath but a fat
bath, a grisly mess set in an operating room where liposuction is
being performed on a man recovering from extensive facial renovations.

On the other hand, one earlier sequence comes across as an editing
tour de force, a fast-motion facelift montage accompanied by the
Rolling Stones' oldie "Paint It Black." If the show weren't
overstocked with eye-poppers, the sequence would stand out even more
effectively.

Probably inspired by the HBO movie "Breast Men," FX's "Nip/Tuck"
seems to stab itself in the heart with overkill, and the notion that
it's going to examine real issues about self-image in a makeover
culture gets lost in the melee. If you want a show to shock you
silly, though, "Nip/Tuck" is just your cut of meat.