TV is the New Reading

‘Nip/Tuck’ is back; L.A.

is a great setting for the

disturbingly perfect drama

On the over-the-top and wildly popular FX drama “Nip/Tuck,” plastic surgeons Christian Troy and Sean McNamara have lifted, nipped and tucked absolutely everything under the sun.

They’ve dealt with wings, tails, flab, body dysmorphic disorder, animals and dead people. They’ve cut into each other and absolutely everyone in their family at least once, whether a simple drawing of blood to the repair of noses broken in enthusiastically flagrante delicto, the undoing of self-inflicted injuries and injuries from a beatdown at the hands of a roving gang of transsexuals and, in one instance, the resuscitation of the clinically dead.

And throughout their practice there have been outrageous surgeries and outlandish sex scenes with patients and a wide, wide circle of friends and acquaintances.

So the question heading into the fifth season is: How can they keep it fresh when they’ve done absolutely everything?

Well ... they’ve never been obscure.

'Ello, L.A.

They’ve been broke before, of course. When a serial brutalizer was terrorizing their home base of Miami, one of them was charged in connection and business fell away in droves. When they were forced to perform surgeries on drug mules smuggling breast implants filled with heroin, it displaced a lot of their legitimate business. The partnership nearly dissolved when Sean discovered Christian had slept with his wife, Julia, 17 years ago, and had in fact fathered his son, Matt. That naturally led to a lot of hardship. But they always struggled back to the top of their game by being the best plastic surgeons in Miami.

So ... the new season finds them in Los Angeles. And it finds them to be bored out of their minds, because no one has ever heard of them, they’ve never cut anyone famous and there’s plastic surgeons everywhere you look, so no one’s stopping into their beautiful surgical salon.

Energy

They determine that they need to get some exposure. A publicist puts them in touch with an outrageous television show called “Hearts ’n Scalpels” and they sign on as much-needed medical consultants. And Sean gets a little screen time, which translates into instant celebrity, and business starts rolling in.

Of course, Christian, who’s always been the razzle-dazzle showman of the two, feels like he’s been shoved to the back-burner. But indeed, part of Sean’s motivation in moving to California last season was to get out of Christian’s shadow some. A brush with a dominatrix – yes, this show is still outrageous – puts him in touch with his inner lion and by the end of the season premiere, Sean is roaring.

“Nip/Tuck” has always been about the relationships as well, so both docs being unattached made the energy seem a little low. But that will change soon enough as, well, everyone they’ve ever met makes their way to L.A.

With any luck, some of their baggage will get lost in transit. Season Five seems to be about getting back to basics – sex and surgery – and hopefully some of the weirdness and excess of Season Four can get left in Miami.

Either way, the season previews suggest there’s a lot of good stuff coming up, and I for one am looking forward to it.

Features Editor Terry J. Aman compiles the Best Bets for The Minot Daily News.

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