Customer Reviews

Nip/Tuck: The Complete Fourth Season

5 star:		(73)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Edited 3/15/09 - WARNING - SPOILER ALERT

This season, we discover that Julia's baby is Sean's, and that it has Ectrodactyly (lobster claw syndrome). Surgeries include Sean doing a procedure on a Treacher/Collins syndrome patient (severe facial deformity), Dawn Budge is "earjacked" (her ear sliced off by an earring thief) a burn reconstruction on Escobar (he's back!), and a breast reconstruction on a woman (Escobar's wife) who's had her breasts brutally cut off.

Guest stars include Brooke shields as Faith Wolper (Christian's therapist), Larry Hagman and Sanaa Lathan as Burt and Michelle Landau, Peter Dinklage as Marlowe Sawyer, Rosie O'Donnell as Dawn Budge, Jacqueline Bisset as James LeBeau, Alanis Morissette as Poppy (Liz's girlfriend), plus the stellar, fantastic, and sexy Catherine Deneuve as Diana Lubey.

Some of the plotlines this season include Liz (the fantastic Roma Maffia) getting a kidney stolen (a la urban legend), the dog and the peanut butter, Matt joins Scientology, Sean has an affair with a potential nanny, Christian gets involved with Michelle, James (a woman) LeBeau has a dangerous hold over Michelle - running an organ theft ring, Christian battles with his own sexuality after his therapist hints that he might be gay, Liz's remaining kidney fails and she has to go on dialysis, Kimber seduces Matt to revenge Christian, Julia sleeps with Marlowe, Merrill Bobbitt returns, Wilber (Christian's "son") returns.

My favorite is the return of Escobar (Robert LaSardo). Escobar is so bad he's good, and he makes for a few great episodes. This time he's not just masking as Sean's conscience, he's really back.

The soundtrack is again fantastic (pick up the CD of the soundtrack to Season One), using music to complement the scenes, such as playing Don McLean's 'Starry Starry Night' (a tribute to Vincent Van Gogh) during the ear replacement surgery.

The season finale was fantastic, with major resolutions and some very big questions left for Season Five. The fault with this season is that once again there wasn't enough surgery scenes. Unlike Season's One and Two which focused on more surgeries, Season's Three and Four focus more on the daily lives of Sean and Christian, and have more personal trauma in them than surgery trauma. I'd like to see them go back to the old formula of more surgery issues. Since Troy/McNamara has made some major changes this year, I'm wondering how many more of the interesting pro-bono reconstructive cases we'll be seeing in the future. Overall, Season Four is as good as Season Three but still doesn't measure up to One and Two. Enjoy!

You know a season is completely nuts when one of the most sane plot points is about an Organ Harvesting Ring!! This show is SO deliriously over the top...I just had a blast. Watching it, my wife and I often found ourselves just looking at each other and shaking our heads in disbelief. Can you imagine that if people in "real life" had to endure what Sean, Christian and company had to endure, they'd have long since died of strokes or heart attacks or just plain stress!

The show makes the machinations in everything from DALLAS to DYNASTY to SIX FEET UNDER look like perfectly normal, even boring occurences.

I love this show because it not only doesn't fear being outrageous, it THRIVES on it. Dylan Walsh and Julian McMahon have the perfect blend of well-rooted and skillful acting, with just a dash of over-the-top over-acting. Not for one minute is the show "believable," but it draws us in nonetheless, thanks in large part to the skill of the two main actors. They are a joy to watch, both as characters and performers. I particulary like Christian Troy. Never more than in this season have we seen his blend of totally self-serving boorishness (and cruelty) peppered with true, honest feelings. He has a new love in this season, and theirs is a complicated relationship that you root for...even though you know it probably won't go well.

Meanwhile, Sean McNamara and his wife Julie are expecting a child, whom they discover has a very rare birth defect, and they must grapple with the preparations for that, and then the aftermath of the birth. This is actually fairly touching and when little Connor arrives, we truly feel for a darling little baby saddled with such a horrible defect. But in true NIP/TUCK form, into this fairly credible development comes a nanny in the form of a "little person" (Peter Dinklage, who is always very good) with an agenda. Leave it to NIP/TUCK!!!

So, it's mostly good. The camoes this year were particularly delightful, from a droll Larry Hagman, to an evil Jacqueline Bisset to a hilarious Rosie O'Donnell (whom I usually HATE...but I have to give her props here for a funny and touching and bawdy performance). Alannis Morrisette was okay in her role as a new love for Liz (the wonderful Roma Maffia.)

But I continue to absolutely HATE both the character of Matt McNamara and the actor who plays him. He's totally unlikeable and I believe still needs to be in prison for the hit and run he got away with years ago. But John Hensley, who plays him, continues to irritate most terribly. He's not a good actor, and frankly, he's almost impossible to look at. I still wonder who thought to cast this guy!! Nearly as annoying is Joely Richardson, a good actress whose character is just so terribly unlikeable. But Christian Troy is an unlikeable character that viewers adore. Julia is an unlikeable character that viewers just don't like.

But overall, the show is great!!! I enjoy every episode (even the strange "futuristic" show set in 2026), and gladly spend my time with McNamara/Troy. The main reason the show gets only 4 stars is that Matt McNamara/John Hensley causes me to drop an entire star.

If you've never seen the show before...by all means do. But you must start with Season One. It's well worth the effort to see them all!!

An extremely disappointing season! I was a die hard Nip/Tuck fan until I watched Season 4. I kept watching hoping it would get better, but it seems the writers were really digging for material to keep us interested, and ended up with a bunch of ridiculous happenings that bounced from place to place. Nip/Tuck 'jumped the shark' this year with their look into the future, turning a present day suave and debonair Christian into a Liberace look alike. We could feel nothing but pity for Sean acting like a 90lb weakling throughout the season. The only thing that kept the interest was Joely Richardson's outstanding acting ability and the host of guest stars - Rosie O'Donnell was fantastic!

There was a very entertaining campy insanity that made the first two seasons a delight to watch (the end of the second season, with that lovable ham Alec Baldwin, was very very clever and fun). The quality, however, began to go down in the third season, with the whole "castrado" thing, but the fourth season is just awful. Very very boring, or as we say in spanish, aburridísima: no ideas, no narrative logic, no risks, no fun. Even the sex in this one looks pretty tame. I mean, when I was a kid, I remember that I knew when a comic book was running out of ideas when Batman went to the future to meet with the martians or something. I had the same feling when I saw the "Nip Tuck from the future episode". Maybe things will get better in LA, who knows?.

Well Season 4 of Nip/Tuck wasn't all it could have been. The first three seasons were brilliant and inventive. Season 4 seemed more like a second rate soap opera than a groundbreaking television show. Organ thievery, the "cult" of Scientology, the affair with a little person, a flashback, a flash foward, this season was full of cliches that played out only slightly better than the last show you saw them in. Don't get me wrong I love Nip/Tuck, and season four was better than most other shows on television, but not by much. If you love Nip/Tuck you will probably like this season alright. If you've been on the fence about this show, season four will probably push you over the edge (on the wrong side).

I almost did not buy this season after being disappointed in Season 3 (I thought it was too weird, and unrealistic). I was shocked when Season 4 got even more weird! However, I was actually more shocked to realize that I was having a great time watching it (I usually do not like shows when they get way outside of the box). This season was extremely well written, and I would definitely recommend it. This is the season that got me back on the Nip Tuck Bandwagon.

Have Fun!

I saw Seasons 1-3 on DVD and then Season 5 on TV. After seeing Season 5, I was not going to buy this thinking it may be somewhere between Seasons 3 and 5 in quality, but I decided to get it when it was on-sale. To my surprise, it was better than Season 3 and much better than 5, but not quite as good as Seasons 1 and 2 (IMHO Season 2 is the best). The good: (1) a great examination of Christian and Sean's relationship (as a result of Christian's therapy sessions), (2) a large number of great guest stars, (3) excellent resolution at the end of the season of many storylines, (4) the return of many characters from the past seasons, (5) still compelling drama and the occasional humor, ; The bad: (1) Sean/Julia - it is very tedious having a couple break up/cheat/get back-together/cheat/break-up....

As the fourth season of Nip/Tuck begins, things are actually looking up for plastic surgeons Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) and Christian Troy (Julian McMahon). Sean and his wife Julia (Joely Richardson) are back together with a new baby on the way, and Christian is, well, being Christian. However, things soon take a downward turn in a big way which marks big changes for the partnership, as well as for Sean and Christian. Julia learns the baby will be born with some debilitating defects, which leads to her and Sean splitting again as well as some affairs, while a wealthy patient (Larry Hagman) purchases the business and Christian falls in love with his younger trophy wife (Sanaa Lathan), who is also involved in an organ harvesting ring with a dangerous femme fatale (Jacqueline Bisset). Not to mention that Matt (John Hensley) joins Kimber (Kelly Carlson) in scientology, which actually seems to help him out, for a while anyway. Christian also gets a pleasent surprise in getting back custody of baby Wilbur as things appear to look up again, but not for long. This season has plenty of guest stars as well, including Kathleen Turner, Mario Lopez, Alanis Morissette, and Peter Dinklage; and sets the stage for the series to go in a new direction as Sean and Christian leave Florida behind for the star studded, and plastic surgery laced, land of Hollywood. All in all, the fourth season of Nip/Tuck is another superb season of one of the best shows on cable TV, and if you're a fan, picking up this DVD collection is a no brainer.

While perhaps not up to par with its preceding seasons, Nip/Tuck's 4th still delivers the goods - sex, violence, drama. The Blu-ray set looks stunning with some really vibrant colours and above average audio. Short review conclusion: if you are a fan of the show, this is a no-brain purchase.

***** Important note about other reviews *****

A lot of low rating reviews on here are people claiming they cannot get their movie players to play the discs - disregard these ratings as these people are clueless as to what the difference is between DVD and HD DVD (THEY ARE NOT THE SAME!). They took out their frustration on the product itself instead of doing some research beforehand and instead blindly ordered something they are not familiar with.

I love this show. It has every element - scandal, deceit, sex, drugs - it's fantastic. Get into it!!!