Customer Reviews

Nip/Tuck: The Sixth and Final Season

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

One of the best cable shows ever broadcast, "Nip/Tuck" closes its doors at its plastic surgery clinic for the final time. This boxset includes all 19 episodes from the final season and comes with bonuses including a gag reel, deleted scenes, and an informative featurette called "Tell Me What You Don't Like About Youself?".
To say that I am going to miss Sean and Christian as well as the rest of the cast is an understatement. Very rarely do we see shows of this caliber; the writing, acting, and production values are what made it stand out from most network shows and I doubt if we will ever see a series of this quality dramatizing stories with plastic surgery as its main content ever again.
The final season has a slew of guest stars including the marvelous Vanessa Redgrave and hunky Mario Lopez reprising their roles from previous seasons. The stories are also daring as the season begins with Liz attempting to take Christian to the cleaners in a nasty divorce settlement; Julia's mother's attempt in adopting Annie; and the most shocking story in which Matt winds up in prison with his psychotic roomate wanting him to have breast implants!
This wonderful boxset will be available in stores on June 8th, 2010.
Goodbye "Nip/Tuck"...you were a class act!

Throughout this final season, our two doctors begin to see signs that they may be redundant in a financial world which crashed. Their success was largely dependent on lots of cash being available for elective cosmetic surgery. Also, Sean's and Christian's relationship becomes the pivotal aspect of the show, not any other relationship. This sets off the best episode in the entire five seasons when the two of them start going to couples psychotherapy with a psychiatrist. I have never laughed so hard as I did through that episode. That was pure five stars all the way. However, the way the series winds down with the final handling of all the characters is what pushes it down to four stars. Many of the characters you've grown to love or hate are brought to conclusions which strain credulity, even in a show which was always campy and over the top. I'm reluctant to say more about how anyone ends up as that will ruin it for viewers. Let me concentrate on the highlights instead: Julia's mother tries to wrest custody away of the children with Julia planning and achieving ultimate comeuppance for her mother at long last. Sean gets involved with a woman who is a black widow style killer who in turn meets a serial killer, which ironically saves Sean. Sean going ballistic with the serial killer in the police station is the ultimate in camp hilarity. Matt tries to find himself as a boardwalk Mime (he's a very good mime) which leads to a massive criminal law mess which presents several way, way over the top resolutions. If your sense of hilarity and absurdity are well in place, you will enjoy this final season. If you take this show seriously, you might hate the final season.

Well here comes, there goes, "Nip Tuck". After six seasons the production team have moved on to a new and more successful show. It is such a shame that (quite obviously) the team that gave us five funny, crazy, fascinating, ridiculous seasons should opt out so lamely at the end. There is no doubt in my mind that Ryan Murphy and his team were a little distracted when they were putting this season together, and who could blame them. At the same time they were creating the most exciting and successful new TV sensation of the decade. But what "Glee" has gained, "Nip Tuck" has sadly lost. This looks like a contractual obligation on everyone's parts, but if the ridiculous hairbrained, repetitious storylines aren't enough, the actors looked positively bored and almost embarassed by it all . I remember in the Australian press Julian McMahon making some sort of critical remark about the last season when he had to return suddenly to tend to his ailing (famous)mother who sadly has since died.
Why didnt they leave it at season five, one of the best seasons of the series. Nothing is new here and the guest (patients)stars seem to dominate. The regular player are bit by bit written out in less than satisfactory ways. Kelly Clarkson's"suicide" looks like a plot device for her to return in the final episodes, when she doesnt, you ponder in amazement that such a vital character from the series could be written out in such an inappropriate and unbelievable way.

I give it two stars only because the wondrous Vanessa Redgrave returns for two episodes and her moments are the best in the series. Joely Richardson, the other reason for making this season almost bearable is also back but only for four episodes out of nineteen. Her exit is contrived and if you want total nonsense see what happens to John Hensley, whose unlikeable character probably deserves what he gets in the end, but it would have been nice if he had been given some positive finale, some sort of learning or redemption. But no, off he goes into another disaster.As to the two central characters, well, I wouldnt have minded if "sean" had jumped off a boat in the first episode, Julian remains the most developed character, but clearly is out the door long before the final credits. The series has outstayed its welcome and best for us to remember the good times, of which this season certainly is not. !!

But first, I'll tell you what was good about it. It won't take as long.

I'm actually grateful that this was the final season. Too many shows linger far past the point where they've "jumped the shark." Invariably, a good television show lasts because the audience comes to identify with the characters and the various players almost become friends of the viewing family. Nip/Tuck was no exception. Even though some of the characters made absurd decisions and exhibited despicable behavior through the years, the writers managed to make the viewers care about what these people were going to do next. Like other reviewers, I'm going to miss the denizens of the Nip/Tuck universe.

HOWEVER...

I'm very grateful this was the last season. Within the first couple of episodes it becomes pretty apparent that some of the actors are tired of the characters they play. Worse than that, it is VERY clear that the writers had run out of ideas. There are fewer ongoing story threads in this season, the main characters are more predictable than ever, and there really aren't any "innovative" or unique surgeries. The "patient of the week" more often than not is there for common or mundane procedures that we've seen repeatedly in past seasons. The writing has also gotten very sloppy. There are some massive plot holes and even though the show has always been a bit over the top, the writing has always been top-notch up until this final season. I'm going to give an example or two of what I'm talking about in the next paragraph. It's a fairly big spoiler so if you have not seen this season yet skip the next paragraph unless you want to know about fairly major moments involving some of the main characters:


SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT DO NOT READ THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON"T WANT TO KNOW!


Kimber steps off a boat in broad daylight and is gone and presumed dead from that point forward. When Christian gets the news he tells Shaun that she's already been missing for over 12 hours. She had been with Christian the night before and then had gone to Shaun's afterward. She then hooks up with Mario Lopez on his yacht the next day. Christian also tells Shaun that she's been missing since "last night." There is no possible way to fit that all together so that it makes any sense. Also, Matt is released from prison because Shaun and Christian do a favor for the District Attorney's Office. This is very shortly after Matt murders another inmate in the cell with him. Even though he has reasons for doing it, there is no way on earth he wouldn't face any consequences for killing a fellow prisoner that had connections throughout the prison. The inmate even had deals going involving the guards. These are just a couple of examples, but there are literally dozens to choose from.

END OF SPOILERS END OF SPOILERS

The final episode of the series ends with a whimper instead of a bang. Another reviewer already stated that regular viewers may be unhappy with some of the ways they wrap up the lives of some of the characters and I have to agree. Someone also mentioned the "couples therapy" episode as one of the best and I agree there as well. I love this series and I don't regret having purchased it. A weak season of Nip/Tuck is still better than most of the shows out there. But the characters deserved better than they got in the last season and the writers could have found any number of better ways to finish things up than they did. Instead they got lazy and it shows.

***1/2

For it's first two strong seasons, Nip/Tuck was one of my favorite shows (and my favorite show not on premium cable). It featured strong performances, interesting characters, and an entertaining critique of beauty, success, sex, and the American dream.

Sadly, by its third season, Nip/Tuck had devolved into a hypersexualized, sensationalistic, and juvenille mess. Instead of surprising the audience with the arcs of the characters, the show often just chose to go for cheap, sordid stunts, and the characters, although still played by strong actors, were just going from one outrageous scenario to another without any believable development. Even when the show moved from Miami to L.A. in its fifth season, little seemed to change.

The final season, although no where near the quality of the first two, does recapture a little of the show's early glory. Mostly because the characters are finally able to move on from the viscious cycles that they seemed to be stuck in for years, often because of their determination to stay together. Sean has long had a desire to leave the superficial plastic sugery business and find more meaningful work, although throughout the series' run he had always found himself sucked into the debauchery and phoniness of the people around him. Christian seems to finally just be able to accept himself for who he is - a successful, handsome, superficial, and promiscuous playboy. And Julia is finally given the oppotunity to settle down with a stable man who is anyone other than Sean or Christian.

The supporting characters don't fare as well as the leads, however. Liz ends up okay, and is finally given the career boost that her capable character long deserved. But Kimber, a woman whose sexual allure had never brought her anything but torment, finds relief only in death. And lost soul Matt's storyline ends in the most bizarre way of all (although entertaining, I'll admit) when the show re-pairs him with the show's best villian, transexual sociopath Eva (Famke Jenson).

Overall, the final season served as a fairly dignified send-off to a show that, at it's best, critiqued the dark underbelly of American ego, excess, and desire, and at it's worst, served as a commercial for it.

I watched this show since the beginning back in 2003 or 2004, either way I was there when Christian and Sean first fed Silvio to the crocodiles and to the very end. I grew to love these characters and never had so much emotional investement in a TV show ever in my life. While having the superficial exterior of a slick, shallow show that only focused on physical perfection the performances of every one of these characters highlighted the true emotional spectrum of what it means to be human, and they went through everything imaginable and took us on one hell of a ride with them! Of course, Sean and Christian are both the real stars of this show. Dylan Walsh and Julian Mcmahon had an oscreen bond that showed that they were truly a real team and they were good in every episode in the series. I remember back to season 2 when they were apart to be torn apart because of the revelation Julia made to Sean, and how that blonde who looked like them made them see how much they needed one another. Sean Christian were two brothers who were very diffirent, and instead of those differences ever tearing them apart they only made them their partnership stronger. Christian: flashy, good-looking, callous, sometimes cruel was what sympathetic, kind-hearted, good-natured Sean needed and vice versa. Through Julia they channeled each other's virtues and faluts and the series was a hit. I miss it already and I will never forget Nip/Tuck.

I was looking forward to seeing how they would wrap up the sixth and final season of Nip/Tuck. I had watched the previous 5 seasons and enjoyed it. Unfortunately, the last season was kind of a let down.

Many parts of the last season seemed like they did not try very hard to end the series. Everyone knew the series was ending, but it was almost as though the sixth season was unrelated to the previous 5. The ending developments of characters was annoying and seemed like it was thrown together.

While I still enjoyed watching the last 19 episodes, it did not do the series justice.

While I agree with the majority - that Nip/Tuck isn't as good as it was in Seasons 1, 2, and possibly 3 - I'm sad that this show is over. Even though the show didn't blow me away as it did in the first season, it's still exciting, shocking, and ridiculously enticing. The series ended a little differently than I would have liked, but I won't put any spoiler alerts. It was good that the characters all got the closure that they'd been looking for since episode 1, season 1.

Can someone please tell me,does 6th and final season mean season 7 is included?Or season 7 never going to be released on DVD?I dont understand if you can download season 7! Love to know Im in Australia and waiting for my copy.

This is a review for the entire show and not just Season 6.

Seasons 1 and 2 of Nip/Tuck were brilliant. And I mean it. I think the writing was one of the best in television history: intelligent, engaging, thought provoking, edgy and just breathtaking. It set the standard for TV dramas and writing in all subsequent years if you ask me. The story lines were believable yet provocative and the topics picked were right at the heart of the matter. Because the characters were written with so much depth, layer and nuances, their struggles were believable and the audience could identify and often sympathize. For the first two years I really believed this to have been the best TV drama I had ever seen.

Unfortunately, it all went downhill starting Season 3. I dont know if they changed writers or just got blinded by their success and didnt try as hard, but Nip/Tuck made a downhill run starting in Season 3 until the abysmal failure which was the last season: increasingly improbable, far fetched situations that take the notion of suspending disbelief to new heights, bad to no character development (at least not one that is believable), unimaginative writing that is all over the place, everyone acting supremely out of character...I could go on with more examples. There just wasn't much depth in the characters later on and in fact at some point they became a parody of themselves it seems. The writers took the "sudden twists" in plot development that were gripping and enticing in the first two seasons and sprinkled them excessively in every episode to the point where it became almost ridiculous. While in the beginning they used those sparingly to get the desired effect, it was just overdone in later seasons - ultimately causing the show to lose exactly what it tried to accomplish.

As mentioned above, people behaving out of character was another prominent feature of the later seasons:

Yes, Christian Troy is a womanizer and playboy who loves luxury, hot girls and shiny cars, but he is also a wounded soul, a caring man who deep down has demons to fight while at the same time trying to hold on to certain principles he would never relinquish. In later seasons, they just turned him into a vile, ruthless, unsympathetic, one dimensional animal who is lacking a moral center. While he had some endearing qualities in the beginning, he had none in the end. He was a weak, mean coward who lost his edge and humanity.

Sean, who was always the thoughtful, loyal, dedicated and responsible person and especially father, was turned into a big time jerk and sex maniac in the later seasons - a man who had no interest in his family and his children and who slept around and used people.

The same is true with most of the characters really. Julia, (Joely Richardson), was a driving force in this series. Her struggles of wanting to go to med school and being more than just a house wife, as well as her subdued, unspoken love and attraction for Christian were an important relationship and plot element. Gradually, she made fewer and fewer appearances, however, became a lesbian at some point (yeah right) - stating she had always been one - and then she sort of disappeared for extended periods of time without explanation or closure. Her passion for medical school and her own life were never even touched upon again and she herself disappeared into obscurity. That was sad, because Julia's presence and the tensions that had developed between her, Christian and Sean were at the heart of the show and its drama. They spent two years building all that up just to drop the subject altogether and never revisit it again.

Speaking of unresolved: Gina just completely disappeared at some point without explanation and then came back just to die in the most absurd, ridiculous way you can imagine: she fell during sex out of the balcony. I really thought they were kidding and this was just someone's day dream or imagination but lo and behold, that was it: she really fell off the balcony during sex. Not only was that ridiculous but also sad in a way and just insulting to what the writers had done with the character in the first place. I always found Gina very fascinating and tragic; the self destruction, low self esteem, the fact that she was Wilbur's mother and her battle with HIV. Her character was filled with potential and they just let her fizzle out and then die in this embarrassing, trashy manner. Totally insulting. I wonder what Christian will tell Wilbur when he asks about his mother one day.

There is also Kimber, another deeply tragic character who ended up being very underutilized given the potential the writers had with her. They did an amazing job exposing her self destructive tendencies and low self esteem, but then just like that, they dropped her and she too became a two-dimensional paper doll and a cliché. Christian marries her on and off over the seasons, but nothing in their dynamic with each other changes. She doesnt develop as a character for either the better or the worst. I saw a glimpse of hope when she got that abortion and it turned out she could never have kids again - gosh that entire plot segment was filled with potential for her character and the implications of that for Christian - but instead of keeping going on that strong note, they just dropped it and let it fade away. The same thing happened when she died. Did she commit suicide? Is she dead? Is she alive? What exactly happened? We never find out. Her death was not remarkable to anyone - which it should have and could have been had the writers not been so busy making up far fetched bogus stories.

There is also that entire plot of Christian marrying Liz. Speak of behaving out of character: Liz always held herself and others to the highest standards. She had a disdain for Chrstian's superficiality and how he used and treated women and she was fully aware of it too. She would *never* have stooped to his level and married him. That was just not her. But they put it in the script and made her whine after Christian and it was ridiculous.

If these were changes in plot and character the writers intended, they should have gone about it in a different way (even though there is no excuse for some of the outlandish plot twists they introduced). People dont just change overnight and fiction or not, you still have to adhere to certain rules such as character consistency within a plot. Sean was portrayed from the beginning on as a hard working, ethical, dedicated father. It is completely out of character for him to suddenly turn into a vile jerk who uses women and doesnt care about his kids. Liz would never have fallen for Christian's sweet talk and married him and then pine away after him, that is ridiculous - not to mention that she is a lesbian.

Of course it is possible for people to change but there has to be evidence for it in the story and plot and not simply because the script says so. The later seasons are drizzled with even more such inconsistencies, which is a sign of bad writing more than one of just things having changed due to the circumstances the characters find themselves . Acting out of character is not character development.

Finally, changing the setting from Miami to L.A. aided in ruining the show completely. The L.A. setting made them be nothing but a bunch of cheap, trashy, run of the mill Beverly Hills plastic surgeons trying to find a way to sell out to the media by humiliating themselves - sort of like the Kardassians. There is some kind of a mystery, sexiness and just boldness to Miami which L.A.'s theme-park commercialism lacks. In the show, L.A. was portrayed as a den for greedy TV producers and dumb people with non-existent moral codes willing to do anything for a dollar, a d-- ck and a dream. McNamara and Troy just became pawns in that scheme and the stories shifted from them to Los Angeles, the dirt of that town and the despicable people roaming it (to the point of stereotyping the city). That was a bad move which, in my opinion, pretty much sealed Nip/Tuck's ruin and reduced its quality to just any other forgettable TV show you hope to end.

The bottom line is that after the success of the first two seasons, the show's producers and writers put the characters into increasingly more improbable situations to the point of turning them into clichés of themselves and the show as such; coupled with the issues mentioned above - such as character inconsistency and poor, chaotic plot development - the result has been that over time a serious disconnect has been created and once you have too many of those disconnects, you lose credibility. And I think that is the main breaking point in the end: the show lost a lot of credibility, unintentionally became a farce of itself and with that it lost the edge and brilliance that made it so amazing and intense in the first place.