Customer Reviews

Nip/Tuck: The Complete Third Season

5 star:		(61)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I realize that by saying anything negative, I will alienate fans of the show. TV fans are a notoriously fickle bunch. I defy you--go to any other TV show DVD listing on Amazon. Pick one that you think is terrible and the fan reviews there will be 5 star! I think you can be a fan, but still be objective. There are lots of shows that I have loved for various reasons--but that doesn't always make them good shows. It means that I have overlooked their flaws.

Now let's talk realistically about "NIp/Tuck". I have seen every episode and continue to watch Season 4. FX created a whole roster of "adult" programs designed to provoke the viewers--to "push the envelope". Trust me, I respect that and I watch them all. "Nip/Tuck" started out a bit erratically--the first season, for me, was about 3 1/2 stars. I saw the promise, yet the episodes lacked a certain cohesion and the characters didn't seem fully flushed out yet. Season 2, however, really hit the stride. It became a gloriously over-the-top soap opera that was good, nasty fun! I LOVED it, especially the deliriously campy Famke Janssen storyline. Still didn't make it a "great" TV show, but it made for "great" TV. I'd have given it 5 stars on entertainment value.

Then there's Season 3. People who object to this season often site the "Carver" storyline as being problematic. I couldn't care less, the "Carver" plot was just as valid as any other (killing mobsters and feeding them to alligators from Season 1, anyone?). The problem for me was a lot more serious.

The show began to sell out it's core characters. Now I have never been a big fan of the McNamara clan. Strangely enough, they are the least compelling part of this show. But I accepted the characters-- and as long as they made sense and the writers understood who they were--then I was fine. The problem with Season 3 was that they no longer made sense. The plots and outrageousness came first! The writers made up the situations that "pushed the envelope" and then just plugged the characters into those scenarios however conveniently. So we had characters doing or believing things every week that were not consistent with the "people" that we knew. And if they needed to flip flop back for another storyline, that's what they did. Don't ask me to care about your characters if you don't! (Another FX show, the sometimes brilliant "Rescue Me" went through the same crisis).

I wish "Nip/Tuck" well, it seems to be starting season 4 in good, fun shape. No matter what, Christian will remain one hell of a great TV character. KGHarris, 9/06.

"Nip/Tuck" is a seriously f****d up television show. I thought "Six Feet Under" was pushing the limits and "Oz" always liked to pour it on, but even if you put those two shows together they are not as f****d up as "Nip/Tuck." There is no other word for it, especially since the producers of this show revel in the fact. I mean, we thought the Carver was pretty bad ("Momma Boone"), and that whole story gets worse ("Rhea Reynolds) and then finds two levels beyond that ("Cherry Peck," "Quentin Costa"). Mercifully that whole subplot comes to an end, although in a whole bunch of ways that we never would have expected. But given some of the other people we meet in Season 3, the Carver ends up being one of the saner people in South Florida. There is "Momma Boone," the obese woman who has to be surgically separated from the couch she has been sitting on for three years. What about the mortuary employee who created a woman, "Frankenlaura," from the body parts of other women? Or "Ben White," who suffers from Body Integrity Identity Disorder and wants his perfectly healthy leg amputated?

I have only recently gotten up to speed with "Nip/Tuck," because I was not especially interested in watching a television show dealing with plastic surgery. Not because I am opposed to the ludicrous extremes to which (primarily) women go in this country to attain an idealized notion of beauty, but because I do not like to watch surgery being performed. Specifically I do not like the cutting part. In high school they showed us a film in health class to dissuade us from smoking. It was not when they took out the cancerous lung that bothered me, but when they took the scalpel, made the initial incision, and then cracked the guy's chest with a rib spreader. "Nip/Tuck" likes to show as much as they can get away with, and even if it is fake, it takes a while to get used to. But apparently I am completely desensitized because there are dozens of victims of an airplane crash ("Sal Perri"), a face transplant ("Hannah Tedesco"), and a seventeen-year-old fetus (I will let you be surprised as to what episode has that surprising turn of events).

If you think the plotlines are f****d up, then you should see the characters. It used to be that I was pretty sure Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) was at the top of that list, but he might be the sanest of the principals given everything that happens in the third season, even though he tries to get married and finally meets his birth mother. Of course, it is hard for Christian to take comfort in his life when dating the likes of Kit McGraw (Rhona Mitra) and Abby Mays (Rebecca Metz), makes Kimber (Kelly Carlson) look good. Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) has a relatively easy year once he gets past Nicole Morretti (Anne Heche) and the fact that his new partner, Quentin Costa (Bruno Campos) is dating Julia (Joely Richardson). But then Julia's entire year is pretty much a case of it being the best of times and the worst of times. She opens up a successful business ("Joan Rivers") and her marriage ends, but certainly the year is exemplified by what happens to her when she learns the plane her mother (Vanessa Redgrave) is on crashed on takeoff ("Sal Perri"). Talk about having your best moment and your worst moment in the same episode.

Even though he is not in all of the episodes, Matt McNamara (John Henlsey), wins the award for having the worst year. His world is rocked when he visits Ava's house, finds Adrian's body, and then learns the truth about Ava from Sean ("Kiki"). If you thought Matt's relationship with Cherry Peck (William Belli) took him to the dark side, wait until he becomes involved with Ariel Alderman (Brittany Snow) and her father (Brian Kerwin). Then I remembered that he has Julia, Sean and Christian for parents, not to mention Ava as a therapist, and there is really no reason for us to think life will be much better for poor Matty. I can also justify my choice because when we get to the big finale in the season with the Carver plotline it is juxtaposed with the final act of the strange and twisted little journey Matt took during this season.

The obvious question at this point would be why do I watch "Nip/Tuck"? A large part of it is because it is so over the top. You would think that at some point they would run out of ways to keep piling things on, but that certainly did not happen in the third season. But beyond that what I find compelling is how despite wallowing in circles of Hell worthy of Dante (or at least David Lynch), these characters keep managing to find their humanity. When Shawn looks at Momma Boone and holds her hand as if she were not the side show freak that others consider her to be and when Christian can allow himself to actually feel something, their characters stop being cruel jokes. The revelation of the Carver's identity and the end game of that whole bloody affair are what dominate the final episodes, but for me it was Matt finding his way back from the dark side, even when the mouth of Hell opens up around him, that was the dramatic highpoint of "Nip/Tuck: The Complete Third Season." I want to think that it is all down hill from here and that there is no way the show can top how f****d up everything was this past season, but I think there is ample reason to be more afraid of the producers of "Nip/Tuck" that either a scalpel or the Carver.

Nip/Tuck took awhile to come back and when it did it didn't disapoint at all. It almost even convinces you that Christian was killed by the carver and it turns out that it's just a dream he tells Sean about. While Matt becomes more of a problem especially after he's told that Ava (Famke Janssen) used to be a man. So he sets out to find her or someone like her. Instead he gets mad and beats up a tranny when he sees that he/she has male parts. Matt later on gets chased down by he/shes that beat him up and pee on him.

Also Christian hires a new partner named Quentin while Christian thinks about his future as a plastic surgeon. Neither of them like him much and it doesn't help things when he trys to get with both of them on seperate occasions. Also of course it doesn't make Sean feel any better for him when he starts showing an interest in Julia.

Julia opens up a beauty spa and doesn't get the support from her mother that she wishes she'd get. Which leads to an excellent episode where Julia thinks her mom might've been on a plane that crashed. That's probably the most gripping episode next to the season finale. Things also get serious between Christian and Kimber and the season offers a lot of brilliant moments between the two.

The show can have it's gross-out moments since they are plastic surgeons but if you get into the story and the characters, the show is hard to resist. The season finale is just brilliant and has two edge of your seat moments actually occuring at the same time, now that's good tv! It also manages to make you feel for Matt after making him easy to dislike earlier in the season. He gets stuck in a very bad situation with a girl's father who has to be the most hateful guy on the planet. While Christian and Sean also are in a life threatening situation after it's reveiled who the carver is. This is just a brilliant season that deserves as many nominations as possible.

Don't get me wrong, Season 3 is definately worth watching. It has all the amazing shocks and twists of the first two. However, I'd have to say that this was the worst of the three thus far. There was just too much inconsistency with what was going on. Too many questions were raised and were never touched on again. The sex scenes were also cut down majorly and were substituted with some bizarre shockdrama. I guess you could say that season 3 went a little too far over the top this time around. The story didn't flow as well as it did with seasons 1 and 2. Still worth the buy tho. Heres hoping that Season 4 corrects some of this season's flaws. Look for it September.

As the third season of Nip/Tuck begins, Sean (Dylan Walsh) comes to the aide of Christian (Julian McMahon) after barely surviving an assault by the masked Carver. From that point on, the season kicks into high gear as Sean and Christian take on a new partner (Bruno Campos), Julia (Joely Richardson) teams up with Liz (Rhoma Maffia) and Gina (Jessalyn Gilsig) as they go into business for themselves, Matt (John Hensley) questions his sexual identity and ends up falling in with a girl and her uber-racist father, and Christian's relationship with Kimber (Kelly Carlson) takes a serious turn, even when they are joined by a kinky cop (Rhona Mitra) assigned to the Carver cases. There's so much going on throughout this season that it's amazing the way Nip/Tuck manages to weave everything together without getting too redundant. The surgical cases that Sean and Christian end up getting involved in, including a gigantic woman literally stuck to her sofa, nearly reach unfeasable heights, yet manage to stay compelling. The only low point of the season comes when Sean considers leaving his old life behind when he begins doing solo work for the Witness Protection Program on an ex-mob wife (Anne Heche) and her son, but thankfully that passes quickly. When the season comes to a close and the Carver returns and his identity revealed, along with a few other plot points that will be touched on again in the upcoming season, you'll be left wanting more; something which Nip/Tuck has successfully managed to accomplish during it's entire run. All in all, the third season of Nip/Tuck is yet another superb season of surgery and sex, and this DVD set should whet your appetite until the upcoming new season premieres.

Oh, how the mighty has fallen and it's not pretty. As I watched episode after episode, I was stunned by the familiar pattern that each episode rendered the previous one completely useless. Like if Julia is pushing for a divorce in one epsiode, in the next, she isn't so sure. And did anyone care about Matt in this season? No surprise that this kid is just as wishy washy as his father. I know that teenagers go through a rebellious stage, but this boy takes the cake. Everyone in this family, except for the little girl, and I say give her time, has killed someone. In season one, Julia absolutely doesn't want another kid, now she does? As a divorcee? And what about her mother? Is she or isn't she alive? I can believe how quickly something like a plane crash is just dropped by the next episode. At the end when her mother is sitting on the couch, I'm like, is this a dream? What was the point in going through all of that? And don't let me get started on the whack storyline about the carver--that literally has to be spoon fed to you in the final episode because nothing about it made sense. Overall, I think the writers need to tone down the constant flip flopping and give us some consistant characters.

FX Networks have been putting out consistently the best TV on TV for the past few years now. THE SHIELD, RESCUE ME, and NIP/TUCK are the best examples of edgy, adult-oriented drama on TV. Despite the fact that this season was a little on the scatter-shot side as far as its multi-layered plots were concerned, it still maintained the highest level of writing, directing, and above all, performance. Dylan Walsh, Joely Richardson, Kelly Carlson, John Helsney, Vanessa Redgrave and Rhona Mitra are all about as spot-on as you can get in their roles. Still towering above them all however, because of the sheer awesomeness of the role and the actor, is Julian McMahon as Dr. Christian Troy. His performances over the past three seasons have been pitch-perfect. His hedonistic highs and his hellish lows are just amazingly portrayed. It's very difficult to pull a role like this off, someone who has so many layers of self, and McMahon does it with ease.

Now this season, as I said, is a little sporadic, and the ultimate storyline's payoff is a little on the weaker side, the rest of it glides forth majestically. The main plot involves the hunt for The Carver, someone who, in believing that "Beauty is a curse on the world", hideously disfigures and brutally assaults the beautiful people of Miami, and especially has their sights on Dr. Sean McNamara and Dr. Christian Troy, the two premier plastic surgeons of Miami. Who is The Carver? What is their true intent? Who will be the next victim? These are just portions of the third season. We have Matt, the son of Sean, Julia and Christian who is currently in the midst of a personal and sexual identity crisis after learning that his last love was actually a post-op transsexual. We also have Christian and Kimber heading to the altar! Julia is... pregnant? Julia's mother is in a firey explosion?

Some of this sounds like bad soap opera, but the acting and writing far transcend that of the usual soap, and the addictive nature of the show keeps us coming back for much much more!

They have done it again..This is better then ANY soap opera. A lot crazier and unpredictable..I will continue to watch this until its out and I own all 3 seasons.

The third season of the gripping drama Nip/Tuck is now available on DVD. The third season definitely started out with high drama. As the season begins, Christian is dealing with the trauma of his attack from the Carver. The emotional scars run much deeper than the physical scars. Sean has his own trauma to deal with-Julia is seeking a divorce. Christian on the other hand makes step toward matrimony by proposing to Kimber. Personal problems aside, time comes to deal with the patients. The first major case of the third season is that of a morbidly obese woman whose skin becomes fused to her couch.

The third season of Nip/Tuck is as dramatic and intense as previous seasons. The ongoing storyline of The Carver continues with Christian even being suspected of being the Carver at one point during the season. The obese lady on the couch made headlines for Nip/Tuck due to it's ripped from the headlines nature but there were other ripped from the headlines procedures explored during the shows third season. The surgeons also pursued giving a woman a face transplant.

The personal and professional drama of the third season were as important to the show as the patients.

Nip/Tuck Season 3, the DVD box set, features 15 episodes on six DVD's with a running time of 723 minutes.

... but still good. I've been a Nip/Tuck addict since the night it premiered, and it remains as stunning, shocking, and insightful as it's always been. I give it only 4/5 starts simply because I was bored with the Carver storyline way before it ended, and found the conclusion somewhat unsatisfactory.