Click photo to enlarge
Dylan Walsh and Julian McMahon star in Nip/Tuck as Drs Sean
McNamara and Christian Troy. Supplied photo.
As Nip/Tuck enters its final season, an elegiac air hangs
over a show once known more for sex, blood and outrage than
airs of any sort.
It's not so much nostalgia, which would be understandable as
the show will end on its 100th episode, as it is a sense of
defeat.
There is simply no joy in Mudville, no, nor in the hearts and
offices of Troy/McNamara.
Part of this is because of the economy.
There are many ways a television show can handle the ongoing
national financial crisis.
It can sink (Dirty Sexy Money), it can swim (Hank), it can
simply ignore it (Cougar Town) or it can try to Say Something
Important.
This last one is a dangerous exercise, but it seems to be the
one Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy has chosen.
The show's final season opens with Linda Hunt giving us a
brief history of the luxury market, best symbolised by the
rise in cosmetic surgery.
We are reminded that our two favorite plastic surgeons, Sean
McNamara (Dylan Walsh) and Christian Troy (Julian McMahon),
rose to fame and wealth during a bacchanal of wretched and,
it turns out, unsustainable excess.
Now, of course, the economy is tanking. Likewise, McNamara
and Troy each face a personal comeuppance.
Sean is still dating anesthesiologist Teddy (Rose McGowan),
and between her big-spending ways and his child support
payments, he is peering into the abyss.
Christian may have gotten a reprieve from fatal breast
cancer, but Liz (Roma Maffia), whom he married last season
when he thought he was dying, is not taking the divorce very
well.
Meanwhile, his son Matt (John Hensley) reacts to having his
expenses trimmed by becoming a mime.
Where Nip/Tuck once crackled, it now whines and sighs; where
once it shocked, it now plays nice.
Both the main characters appear firmly, if accidentally, on
the path of self-discovery and righteousness, which, frankly,
is just a big drag.
What made Troy/McNamara a must-see pair was their absolute
lack of scruples, boundaries and self-awareness.
Granted, the show set the bar fairly high in early seasons.
With its threesomes and foursomes, necrophilia and casual
slicing, Nip/Tuck was one of the most talked about shows on
TV; decline is inevitable.
Are we really going to spend our last few hours together
worrying about Sean becoming addicted to OxyContin and weird
girls who haunt emergency rooms, while Liz gives Christian a
series of "you can't use people like toilet paper" lectures?
Gosh, I hope not, because that's not why anyone watches
Nip/Tuck.
• Nip/Tuck returns to TV2 at 10.30pm on Mondays.
