Scalpel-sharp 'Nip/Tuck' slices into La-La Land

October 30, 2007|Matthew Gilbert, Globe Staff

FX's "Nip/Tuck" may be the best TV series ever made about beauty, lust, and the lust for beauty. The plastic-surgery drama just keeps on spinning smart, tart, funny, tragic, sexy, grotesque tales about vanity and contemporary American life. Just when you think creator Ryan Murphy and his "Nip/Tuck" writers are about to run out of fresh material, they devise unexpected new ways to illuminate the human condition and our battle - always lost - against time and genetics.

As it enters its fifth season, tonight at 10, "Nip/Tuck" and its two plastic surgeons have moved from Miami to LA, where Sean facetiously asks, "Has anyone in this town not had plastic surgery?" The location change works beautifully for the show; La-La Land presents Drs. McNamara and Troy with a whole new level of soullessness and superficiality. Now, they must break into a town where moral questions about surgery addiction and distorted body image are pointless. They have to either go Hollywood or go home, so they hire a ruthless publicist, played by Lauren Hutton, to help increase their profile and bring in high-paying business.

Going Hollywood means behaving like stars, and then becoming stars. The doctors get a gig as consultants on a ridiculous TV medical drama called "Hearts & Scalpels," and one of them actually appears on the show. What's great about this plot is that it allows "Nip/Tuck" to turn its blunt knife on itself. By making fun of "Hearts & Scalpels," which stars an egotistical actor (Bradley Cooper) and an insecure actress (Paula Marshall), "Nip/Tuck" is able to make fun of "Nip/Tuck." Tonight, in a hysterical bit featuring Jennifer Coolidge, "Hearts & Scalpels" does a plot based on one of Sean and Christian's most absurd cases from season 2, about a woman who had skin transposed from her genitals to her mouth.

The new location for "Nip/Tuck" will also help the show zero in on that group most tormented by issues of youth and beauty - women in Hollywood. Sean and Christian have dealt with the plight of actors before, including one memorable episode in which Joan Rivers appeared as herself, remorsefully hoping to have all her surgery reversed. (In a typically sick "Nip/Tuck" twist, Rivers sees a computer simulation of what she'll look like and changes her mind. Indeed, she decides to have another face lift.) But this season, the show will be able to explore the psychic cost to actresses, who are compelled to nip and tuck even in their 30s. Tonight, an aging starlet played by Daphne Zuniga falls prey to the pressure.