Smashremote:NipTuck

Summer Viewing: A Little Nip/Tuck Will Do Ya...

Brace yourself, television programming executives actually has come up with a promising summer show. Nip/Tuck, a sleeper that previewed recently on the FX network, is all about the pursuit of perfection/happiness and how miserable everyone is in the process. Plastic surgeons with tons of money are miserable, despite having a thriving, growing practice and scads of money. Wives and girlfriends are miserable, despite being better looking and having nicer bodies than 99.9 percent of the world. Potential patients are absolutely miserable because they believe a smaller nose, a firmer butt, a nip here, a tuck there, is going to solve all their deep seated self-esteem issues. Basically, every body is just unhappy as hell. Outlandish plots aside, the show is also, according to a couple of genuine plastic surgeons we know, fairly realistic from the standpoint of how ugly one has to get before one can get pretty. Bruising, contusions, swelling, blood, you name it, all part and parcel to the wonderful world of beauty. Anybody who is considering plastic surgery should definitely be forced to watch some of the grimmer scenes involving surgery. The show is very good at depicting what really happens when you carve into human flesh, folks. And it’s far from a pretty thing.

Still, the premise of the show works and you cannot help but feel for both surgeons. The first is an unhappy but fairly ethical fellow; the second, someone who has no problems crossing the line of morality. Shove a suitcase full of C notes at surgeon number two and he will happily perform visual miracles on some underworld criminal and still sleep soundly at night. The scary thing is, most of us actually know someone like this guy. The morally bankrupt aren’t exclusive to the world of plastic surgery; they are all around us. So when we watch Dr. Christian Troy (played with relish by Julian McMahon), we aren’t so much uncomfortable as struck by the familiar. He’s the vice president who fired us because we were so much more talented that he was; the ex spouse who got away with lying to courts about how much he saw the kids in order to get a reduction in child support; the distant cousin who has no problem passing off her kid as her husband’s biological child when she knows damn well the child is the product of her habitual infidelity. These people live among us and make up much of the fabric of our society. Dr. Christian Troy is in good company as heartless, driven and greedy bastard possessed of too much talent and too little scruples. We all know a Dr. Troy or two; only mostly, they don’t wield scalpels.

On the other hand, watching Dr. Sean McNamara is a bit of a downer. He’s so functionally depressed one has to wonder why such a well-trained physician can’t get a clue from his own symptoms. He has a depressed herself wife, two kids, a great career and yet he’s so emotionally shut down you want to prod him with his own scalpel just to get a rise out of him. On the other hand, off the scale in talent Joely Richerson, as the Misses Dr. McNamara, is so self absorbed and out of touch with reality that she feels totally justified in throwing a sobbing tantrum in front of her teenaged son because she has to clean up her daughter's gerbil's droppings. Sure, she has a staff that amounts to full time domestic help but golly gosh, she still thinks she's so put upon and unappreciated that she goes ballistic when her searching for a purpose husband ponders doing pro bono work instead of expensive boob jobs. Like so many women who too easily trade their dreams and lives in for a cushy lifestyle provided by an ambitious spouse, she continues to focus her life and any choices she made on her husband. She long ago conveniently forgot that her happiness is her own responsibility. Just as convenient, she blames her husband for never finishing college or going to medical school when it is clear to everyone but her that her self-absorbtion and sell out attitude throw into sharp relief that she couldn't have cut it in the real world. Looking for sparks? Check out the all too predictable chemistry between the missus and her husband's needy but emotionally bankrupt partner, Dr. Troy. How many women do we all know like her? The answer may make anyone who is truthful far too uncomfortable to discuss.

While the first episode did jump into too many sub-plots and rely on too much violence to move the show along, the concept itself still holds the promise of exploring one of the most pervasive of modern human conditions; the self-loathing of American women. “Tell me what you dislike about yourself,” is an opening line that every woman in America can embrace with a vengeance. Thanks to Madison Avenue, advertising, male dominated expectations of unattainable beauty, the list, for most women, is endless.

Nip/Tuck provides more than a look into the often seedy world of talent gone corrupt, it offers up a window into our very souls. Looking into a mirror we not only loathe what stares back at us but we find a sort of smug satisfaction in knowing that the rest of the world feels exactly the same way.

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Summer Viewing: A Little Nip/Tuck Will Do Ya... Brace yourself, television programming executives actually has come up with a promising summer show. Nip/Tuck, a sleeper that previewed recently on the FX network, is all about the pursuit of perfection/happiness and how miserable everyone is in the process. Plastic surgeons with tons of money are miserable, despite having a thriving, growing practice and scads of money. Wives and girlfriends are miserable, despite being better looking and having nicer bodies than 99.9 percent of the world. Potential patients are absolutely miserable because they believe a smaller nose, a firmer butt, a nip here, a tuck there, is going to solve all their deep seated self-esteem issues. Basically, every body is just unhappy as hell. Outlandish plots aside, the show is also, according to a couple of genuine plastic surgeons we know, fairly realistic from the standpoint of how ugly one has to get before one can get pretty. Bruising, contusions, swelling, blood, you name it, all part and parcel to the wonderful world of beauty. Anybody who is considering plastic surgery should definitely be forced to watch some of the grimmer scenes involving surgery. The show is very good at depicting what really happens when you carve into human flesh, folks. And it’s far from a pretty thing. Still, the premise of the show works and you cannot help but feel for both surgeons. The first is an unhappy but fairly ethical fellow; the second, someone who has no problems crossing the line of morality. Shove a suitcase full of C notes at surgeon number two and he will happily perform visual miracles on some underworld criminal and still sleep soundly at night. The scary thing is, most of us actually know someone like this guy. The morally bankrupt aren’t exclusive to the world of plastic surgery; they are all around us. So when we watch Dr. Christian Troy (played with relish by Julian McMahon), we aren’t so much uncomfortable as struck by the familiar. He’s the vice president who fired us because we were so much more talented that he was; the ex spouse who got away with lying to courts about how much he saw the kids in order to get a reduction in child support; the distant cousin who has no problem passing off her kid as her husband’s biological child when she knows damn well the child is the product of her habitual infidelity. These people live among us and make up much of the fabric of our society. Dr. Christian Troy is in good company as heartless, driven and greedy bastard possessed of too much talent and too little scruples. We all know a Dr. Troy or two; only mostly, they don’t wield scalpels. On the other hand, watching Dr. Sean McNamara is a bit of a downer. He’s so functionally depressed one has to wonder why such a well-trained physician can’t get a clue from his own symptoms. He has a depressed herself wife, two kids, a great career and yet he’s so emotionally shut down you want to prod him with his own scalpel just to get a rise out of him. On the other hand, off the scale in talent Joely Richerson, as the Misses Dr. McNamara, is so self absorbed and out of touch with reality that she feels totally justified in throwing a sobbing tantrum in front of her teenaged son because she has to clean up her daughter's gerbil's droppings. Sure, she has a staff that amounts to full time domestic help but golly gosh, she still thinks she's so put upon and unappreciated that she goes ballistic when her searching for a purpose husband ponders doing pro bono work instead of expensive boob jobs. Like so many women who too easily trade their dreams and lives in for a cushy lifestyle provided by an ambitious spouse, she continues to focus her life and any choices she made on her husband. She long ago conveniently forgot that her happiness is her own responsibility. Just as convenient, she blames her husband for never finishing college or going to medical school when it is clear to everyone but her that her self-absorbtion and sell out attitude throw into sharp relief that she couldn't have cut it in the real world. Looking for sparks? Check out the all too predictable chemistry between the missus and her husband's needy but emotionally bankrupt partner, Dr. Troy. How many women do we all know like her? The answer may make anyone who is truthful far too uncomfortable to discuss. While the first episode did jump into too many sub-plots and rely on too much violence to move the show along, the concept itself still holds the promise of exploring one of the most pervasive of modern human conditions; the self-loathing of American women. “Tell me what you dislike about yourself,” is an opening line that every woman in America can embrace with a vengeance. Thanks to Madison Avenue, advertising, male dominated expectations of unattainable beauty, the list, for most women, is endless. Nip/Tuck provides more than a look into the often seedy world of talent gone corrupt, it offers up a window into our very souls. Looking into a mirror we not only loathe what stares back at us but we find a sort of smug satisfaction in knowing that the rest of the world feels exactly the same way. Contact Us Home Archives Copyright© 2003. All rights reserved.