Nip/Tuck ran on FX from 2003 to 2010, and it is the show where Ryan Murphy figured out what a Ryan Murphy show is. Medical drama, crime story, black comedy, family drama, satire and psychological thriller, all in the same hour, held together by two plastic surgeons and a practice called McNamara/Troy. It is loud and it is uneven and, at its best, it is as sharp as anything the network made.
Trailer, via FX Networks.
McNamara and Troy
Dylan Walsh plays Dr. Sean McNamara and Julian McMahon plays Dr. Christian Troy, partners in a cutting-edge and controversial plastic surgery center. Sean is the family man having a midlife crisis. Christian is the womanizer having one too. Walsh gives the show its conscience and McMahon gives it its charm, and the friendship between two men who need and resent each other is the only thing in the series that never wavers.
The Patients
Every episode after the pilot is named for a patient scheduled for surgery, and every episode features graphic partial depictions of the procedure. That structure is the show’s engine. The patient’s reason for wanting to change is the theme of the hour, and the doctors’ own lives reflect it. It is a neat device, and Murphy’s writers used it well more often than not.
The Lives
Joely Richardson plays Julia, Sean’s wife, and John Hensley plays their son Matt, whose storylines are where the show’s appetite for the outrageous runs hottest. Roma Maffia plays Liz Cruz, the anesthesiologist, and she is the series’ most grounded presence. Kelly Carlson’s Kimber, the model who becomes part of Christian’s life, and the parade of his other partners fill out a cast that Murphy never hesitated to put through hell.
Serial Storytelling
Unlike most medical dramas, Nip/Tuck told its stories in arcs across seasons, and the long arcs are where it earned its reputation. A serial killer who targets the practice, a family that keeps fracturing, a partnership that keeps almost ending: the show trusted its audience to follow, and the audience did.
Where It Falls Short
The outrageousness is the brand and the weakness. Murphy escalates, and by the later seasons the twists are competing with each other rather than serving the characters. The surgery scenes, meant to shock, become routine. The satire of vanity culture is sharp in the first seasons and blunt by the end. And the show’s move of its practice to a new city late in the run felt like a reset the story did not need.
The Verdict
Nip/Tuck is the template for a whole style of television, and the template is better than most of the copies. It is a show about people who fix surfaces and cannot fix themselves, and when it remembered that, it was very good.
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