New blood keeps Nip/Tuck alive
By Jeanmarie Tan
November 28, 2006
NIP/TUCK III
STARRING: Dylan Walsh, Julian McMahon, Joely Richardson, John Hensley, Bruno Campos, Rhona Mitra
SHOWING ON: Channel 5, Mondays, 11pm
RATING: 3.5 ticks
HERE'S one show that really isn't afraid of pushing the envelope.
Pulpy US soap Nip/Tuck has been testing the boundaries of medical ethics, sexuality and family values, while serving up a generous portion of queer and colourful characters.
Its makers seem to enjoy every minute of scandalising both those who love it and those who hate it.
The sex-and-surgery series has offered a wild ride of violence and vanity, tawdriness and titillation, and makes for deliciously wicked late-night adults-only television.
However, even as the third season continues the vein of dark, sinister themes, it isn't as consistently excellent as the first two in terms of wit, pathos or compelling storylines.
There's over-the-top, and then there's over-the-top.
Hotshot plastic surgeon Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) is recovering from being slashed and raped by the Carver, a highly-creepy masked serial killer who slices up gorgeous women's faces The Black Dahlia-style.
Introduced late last season, this whodunit twist injected an exciting murder mystery element to what was essentially a satirical study of self-worth and society's perception of beauty.
Meanwhile, his hopelessly neurotic partner, Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh), has his own problems, like granting wife Julia (Joely Richardson) a divorce.
But the weakest link of the dysfunctional McNamara household is rebellious teenage son Matt (John Hensley), who discovers the love of his life was a transsexual and ends up questioning his sexuality.
Our jaws are still dropping over Famke Janssen's delicious The Crying Game turn last season.
Although, one must admit the freakiest thing about Hensley is how he still looks so much like Michael Jackson, even without hair.
But before viewers overdose on the characters' manic depressive behaviour, Nip/Tuck's notoriously gory, ewww-inducing on-screen surgeries jolt us back to the land of the living.
The disturbing new cases reach nearly unfeasible heights and are sometimes too heavy-handed in mirroring existential aspects of the surgeons' lives.
For example, operating on an obese woman whose skin has fused with the sofa she hasn't left for three years and a scarred gorilla that needs its face repaired in order to mate.
Pumping in new blood could stabilise Nip/Tuck's current unstable condition.
There's new surgeon Quentin Costa (Bruno Campos) and a kinky femme fatale detective (Rhona Mitra) on board, both of whom have secrets to hide and are linked to The Carver.
Series creator Ryan Murphy and his team run the risk of slipping and hitting an artery, but so far, the flawed Nip/Tuck looks like it can be fixed.
Since February 4, 2006