Nip/Tuck

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Nip/Tuck (premiered July 22, 2003) is an American drama television series created by Ryan Murphy for FX Networks. It follows the lives of two Miami plastic surgeons, Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) and Christian Troy (Julian McMahon), as their lives fall apart under the stress of greed, envy, lust and crime. The show, while not strictly a soap opera, has some story arcs. In its debut season, Nip/Tuck was the highest-rated new series on basic cable, and the highest rated basic cable series of all for the 18-49 and 25-54 age demographics. The first season averaged about 3.25 million viewers an episode, and was released on DVD in the US on June 15, 2004. The second season averaged about 3.8 million viewers per episode, and was released on DVD in the US on August 30, 2005.

Nip/Tuck is rated TV-MA, for mature audiences

In 2005, Nip/Tuck won the Golden Globe for Best Drama Series. The third season debuted in the U.S. on Tuesday, September 20, 2005 and debuted in the UK on October 16, 2005.

Nip/Tuck
Image:Niptuck.jpg
Dr. Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) & Dr. Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh)
Directed by
Produced by
Writen by
Starring
Music by
Distributed by
Release Date(s)
Rated
Running Time
Preceded by
Followed by


Contents

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Character history

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
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Main characters

  • Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh)- A plastic surgeon nearing middle age and trying to come to terms with the choices he has made in his life. For near two decades he has run the McNamara/Troy plastic surgery clinic with his best friend, Christian Troy. Sean believes that he went into plastic surgery to help repair the bodies of the deformed and the mutilated, but became sidetracked in performing vanity procedures. When the show begins, he is considering going into pro-bono work. He has been married to his college sweetheart Julia for 17 years, and they have two children - Matt and Annie. He and Julia have had many ups and downs in their marriage, but their relationship is slowly falling apart. At one point, Sean has an affair with one of his patients - Megan O'Hara, a breast cancer survivor who is separated from her husband. The affair continues until Sean confesses it to Matt and tries to break it off, but he feels obligated to Megan when her cancer returns. She soon decides to take her own life instead of going through painful therapy and asks Sean to help her go peacefully. Julia accompanies Sean to Megan's funeral where she realizes why he is so upset about her death. Sean and Julia don't separate at this point but work hard to try to salvage their marriage. At the end of the first season Julia learns that Matt is in fact Christian Troy's biological son (a result of a one-night stand just before Julia and Sean's wedding), which Christian confesses to Sean in the second season. He and Julia quickly separate, and they later divorce at the beginning of the third season. Suffering from an identity crisis of sorts, Sean quit the practice and joined the Witness Protection Program, only performing one operation on a son and mother, who he then began having a relationship with. Finally choosing between leaving his old life behind and getting a new one completely, he returns to the practice and ignites his bitter rivalry with Dr. Quentin Costa.
  • Christian Troy (Julian McMahon)- Sean's best friend and business partner. He, too, is nearing middle age, but lives his life as a never-ending quest to feel and appear young. His life has been an endless succession of seducing and sleeping with women, only to cast them off once he's gotten the sexual satisfaction he wants from them. It has been hinted at that Christian's borderline deviant sexual behavior may be rooted in the severe sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of his foster parents, or may be traced to his father who raped his mother when she was a teenager (Christian was given up upon birth and only recently discovered his mother was still alive, although she found it too difficult to try and maintain any sort of contact with him). When he and Sean were in college together, he had a one-night-stand with Sean's then-fiancee, Julia, and impregnated her. For years, Julia told Sean that the child, Matt, was his son, never informing either he or Christian which of them was the father. In the second season of the show, Julia finally reveals who Matt's true father is, though it doesn't change Matt and Christian's close relationship. Their relationship, however, does become severely strained following the revelation regarding Matt's lover Ava in the third season. He proposes to Kimber and also convinces her to quit her job, only to have her disappear moments before walking down the aisle on their wedding day. He is currently unaware that she was kidnapped by the Carver and forced to write the Dear John letter he received.
  • Julia McNamara (Joely Richardson)- Sean's emotionally unstable wife of 17 years. When the show begins she is beginning to doubt her relationship with Sean, and throughout the course of the first season she considers (and attempts) several affairs, including one with Christian (which is thwarted when Julia arrives at his apartment only to find Christian already sleeping with twins) and a college student several years her junior. The pilot episode makes clear her disloyal and destructive behavior when she first flushes her daughter's still-living hamster down the toilet (resulting in her being booted from the PTA) and allows Christian to "examine" her bare breasts in her living room when she tells him she is considering plastic surgery herself. Julia's inability to make permanent decisions becomes a motif through the course of the series: she spends most of the first and second seasons wishing she had married Christian. An episode in Season 2 showing how her life would've been different had she married Christian reveals that if she were married to Christian, she would've spent the course of their marriage wishing she'd married Sean, a revelation which is followed up by Julia considering lesbianism. In the second season, she reveals to Christian that a one-night-stand she had with him in college when she was engaged to Sean resulted in the birth of Matt; the revelation of this served to finally destroy Sean and Julia's tenuous marriage.
  • Matt McNamara (John Hensley)- Christian and Julia's troubled son. He was raised thinking that he was Sean's son and still treats Sean as his father even after the revelation that Christian is his biological father. He is often involved in activity that would be considered unseemly or even criminal. In the first season he and a friend smoke marijuana while driving a car, resulting in Matt hitting (and running) and gruesomely disfiguring a teenage girl. Matt refuses to take accountability for the accident, instead he tries to gain atonement by convincing Sean to do pro-bono surgery and repair the girl's disfigurement. He later enters into a relationship with a pair of teenage lesbians who want to use him to spice up their sex lives; Matt's involvement serves to ruin the girls' relationship. He spends the majority of Season 2 sleeping with Ava, Julia's life coach whom she hires to counsel Matt; a woman nearly twenty years his senior, who was previously involved in a sexual relationship with her step-son. Unbeknownst to Matt, Ava was once a man who had undergone extensive surgery to change her gender. When Sean reveals Ava's past to Matt, it is suggested that Matt may be repressing homosexual feelings or may have a sexual fetish for transgender women.
  • Liz Cruz (Roma Maffia)- Dr. Liz Cruz, head anesthesiologist for McNamara/Troy. She's often the voice of reason in the office. Liz is a 40-something, no nonsense, strong-willed, empathetic woman...who also happens to be a lesbian. The show hasn't really shown her love life, except for one encounter with Sophia Lopez, whose gender reassignment surgery (to "officially" become a woman) was the next day. She has a love-hate relationship with Christian - she even carried his child, conceived through artificial insemination, although she aborted it when she learned the child was likely to have severe birth defects. In season 3, Liz resigns from McNamara/Troy (after the firm hits financial difficulties) and becomes the general practitioner for De La Mar - Julia and Gina's brand new surgical recovery spa.
  • Kimber Henry (Kelly Carlson)- Christian's on-again off-again girlfriend. She's a one-time model, porn actress, and now porn producer. They first met in the pilot. Kimber wasn't initially interested in Christian, until he revealed he was a plastic surgeon. After a wild sexual encounter, Dr. Troy told Kimber how she could up herself from an 8 to a 10 - with plastic surgery. But after the procedure, she felt Christian had dumped her aside - and lashed out by vandalizing his luxurious sports car and boat (though he didn't know she was the culprit). A few months later, they reconnected when Christian realized he was missing out on the best sex of his life. But he later wanted to end things upon realizing she wasn't very bright. To do so, he made a deal with Dr. Merrill Bobolit (played by Joey Slotnick) - Christian would push Kimber into Merill's arms - and the latter would give up his prized blue Lamborgini to the former. It worked until Merill confessed, and Kimber exacted her revenge by luring Christian to bed. There, she tied him up, threatened him with a knife, and left him there, taking the keys to his new car. She later became engaged to Merrill until he lost his practice. Kimber struggled to make a living by doing porn and developed a cocaine habit, which ruined her septum. She later cleaned herself up by developing a widely successful sex doll modeled after herself, which led to a brief fling with Sean, and then back into the arms of Christian. In season 3, she and Christian finally get engaged, but she disappeared shortly before she was to walk down the aisle. Christian assumes Kimber couldn't go through with the marriage, but she was in fact kidnapped by The Carver, who is holding her in an undisclosed location. The Carver forced her to write Christian a Dear John letter after cutting up her face.
  • Gina Russo (Jessalyn Gilsig)- Christian and Gina met at a Sexaholics Anonymous meeting, where they began a love/hate sexual relationship initiated by Christian - a move he's probably been regretting ever since. That one-time sexual encounter led Gina to believe she was carrying Christian's child, which seemed to spark a tremendous change in Christian who decided he wanted to be the best father he could to the child. The pair only found out in the delivery room that the kid wasn't his because baby Wilbur was half-black. Christian vowed to raise him as his own until Gina could track down Wilbur's biological father James, an older married man from Arizona, to ask him to give up custody. James initially agreed but later recanted and fought for custody of Wilbur and ended up taking away the one thing that brought Christian and Gina together. Months later, Gina revealed to Christian she was HIV-positive which forced Christian to rethink his life as he called up every girl he has had sex with to warn them, and then tracked down James and Wilbur (who had since be renamed Gabriel) so they could be tested - all three were HIV-negative. James convinces Christian to see the good in Gina, leading him to forgive her for all her misdeeds. Christian ends up paying for Gina's HIV medication (upon finding out that she was without any healthcare and was not on any HIV medication), and the rent on her apartment. The two had since developed a good friendship, though that quickly changed when Christian's money troubles forced him to stop supporting Gina, and she now despises him again. She soon after found a way to support herself by embarking on an ambitious business venture with Julia, a surgical recovery spa called "De La Mar."
  • Quentin Costa (Bruno Campos)- A plastic surgeon from Atlanta who was brought in to assist Christian to fix Sean's face (a slash to the right side of his face) after an attack by the Carver. Later, he is offered a limited partnership by Sean after Christian neglects to return to work after being attacked by the Carver. Initially, Christian refused to accept having Quentin as an associate but later changes his mind and supports the decision. A couple episodes later it was revealed that Quentin was bisexual and eventually he starts dating Sean's ex-wife Julia. Following Sean's return to the practice, both Quentin and Sean admit their hatred for each other. After catching Quentin using cocaine before surgery, and later having anal intercourse with a patient, Sean blackmails him in an attempt to force him to quit the practice and/or lose his license. He then offers Sean and Christian to buy out the rest of his contract at a reduced price (half price), only to then reveal he is staying in Miami to become resident surgeon at "De La Mar" under the employment of Julia McNamara. He was later fired from De La Mar after an arguement with Julia.
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Other characters

  • Grace Santiago - Valerie Cruz (Season 1) Former staff psychiatrist at the firm.
  • Ava Moore - Famke Janssen (Season 2) Life coach to Julia, and lover to Matt. Was revealed to be a transexual, and fled the country to France after her son committed suicide.
  • The Carver - (Seasons 2-3) A masked serial rapist who disfigures his victims by cutting a deep slash on either side of their mouths, resembling a smile. He became angry at McNamara and Troy when they began "fixing" his "masterpieces" by performing pro-bono surgery on his victims. At the end of the second season, Christian was attacked and raped in his home by The Carver. The Carver's identity has yet to be revealed.
  • Dr. Barrett Moore - Alec Baldwin (Episode 2.16 "Joan Rivers") A plastic surgeon famous for his transgender surgeries, had a close relationship with Ava Moore.
  • Kit McGraw - Rhona Mitra (Season 3) A British detective brought in to solve The Carver case. She eventually arrested Christian for the crimes, but while he was being held in prison, she became a Carver victim herself.
  • Dr. Merril Bobolit - Joey Slotnick (Seasons 1-2) Former competitor to Sean and Christian, Bobolit lost his medical license for operating on a dog. From there, he went off the deep end and was last seen removing his own face.
  • Dr. Erica Noughton - Vanessa Redgrave (Seasons 2-3) Julia's controlling mother. She makes it clear that she feels Julia has wasted her potential by not becoming a medical doctor.
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Awards

  • Emmy Awards (2004):
    • Won - Outstanding Makeup for a Series, Miniseries, Movie or a Special (Prosthetic).
    • Nominated - Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series, Outstanding Main Title Design, Outstanding Main Title Theme Music, Outstanding Makeup for a Series (Non-Prosthetic).
  • Golden Globe Awards (2004):
    • Nominated - Best Television Series - Drama, Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Drama (Joely Richardson).
  • Golden Globe Awards (2005):
    • Won - Best Television Series - Drama.
    • Nominated - Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Drama (Julian McMahon), Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Drama (Joely Richardson).
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Region 1 DVD releases

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Complete seasons

DVD Date Released
The Complete First Season 14 June 2004
The Complete Second Season 30 August 2005
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Trivia

  • Vanessa Redgrave, who plays Julia's mother (Dr. Erica Noughton), is also actress Joely Richardson's real-life mother.
  • Linda Klein, who plays Nurse Linda, is a real-life nurse and the medical consultant for the show.
  • Joely Richardson and John Hensley dated at one point [1].
  • Joely Richardson is British, but plays the role of Julia McNamara with an American accent.
  • Ryan Murphy, the show's creator, is openly gay.
  • The reason why Season 3 started so much later in the season was because Julian McMahon was busy promoting Fantastic Four (2005), where he starred as the villain, Victor Von Doom (Dr. Doom).
  • The Parents Television Council has begun a national campaign to remove the show from FX. This didn't stop Sony from being the sole sponsor of the season 3 premiere.
  • XM Radio sponsored the 2nd season opener commercial free.
  • Stacker 2 sponsored the 2nd season finale commercial free.
  • The 2nd season finale drew over 5 million viewers, making it the second most watched program ever on FX.
  • The opening theme of the show is performed by The Engine Room.
  • Gary Numan's song titled "Cars" has been played in both the 1st and 2nd season finale of Nip/Tuck.
  • On Halloween Day, 2005, Peter Braunstein allegedly disguised himself as a firefighter and assaulted a woman in an attack believed to be inspired by The Carver. He is still at large [2].
  • The 3rd season premiere (September 20th, 2005) drew roughly 5.3 million viewers beating the 2nd season's finale of 5 million viewers and making it the most watched program ever on FX [3].
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Real-life basis for surgeries

Series creator Ryan Murphy has stated that the medical cases featured on the show are "100 percent based on fact" [4].

  • In Episode 1.13 ("Escobar Gallardo"), the featured surgery involved a druglord changing his appearance via plastic surgery. In July of 1997, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, one of the world's most powerful drug traffickers at the time, died while having plastic surgery to drastically alter his face (and while having 3 1/2 gallons of fat sucked from his body). [5]
  • In Episode 2.4, ("Mrs. Grubman"), the featured surgery involves a patient addicted to plastic surgery. Plastic surgery addiction is a real phenomenon, and is believed to stem from a psychological condition called Body dysmorphic disorder in many cases.
  • In Episode 2.9 ("Rose and Raven Rosenberg"), the featured surgery concerned the separation of two adult conjoined twins. While there have been many cases of conjoined twin separation, the surgery featured in this episode shares some details with the 1991 separation of Gracie and Rosie Attard, which resulted in the death of Rosie. [6]
  • In Episode 2.10 ("Kimber Henry"), a surgery in the show involved a male writer/humorist getting breast implants as resource material for a new book. This shares some similarities with the story of Canadian Brian Zembick, who in the year 2000 got breast implants to win a £45,000 bet. Unlike the patient on Nip/Tuck, Zembick decided to keep his breasts, and later displayed them to the world on an episode of The Man Show.[7]
  • In Episode 3.1 ("Momma Boone"), the featured surgery appears to have been based on a 480-pound Florida resident, who died after emergency workers tried to separate her from the couch she had lived on for 6 years [8].
  • In Episode 3.9 ("Hannah Tedesco"), the featured surgery was a facial transplant. In November of 2005, a French plastic surgeon performed the world's first (partial) face transplant [9]. While the real-life surgery was performed after the episode first aired, face transplant surgery had been a theoretical possibility in the plastic surgery community for some time.
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Broadcast details

The show has been broadcast outside the United States on the following television networks:

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References

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See also

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External links

es:Nip/Tuck fr:Nip/Tuck pl:Bez_skazy it:Nip/Tuck

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