Tuck into the bizarre life of plastic surgery

By FIONA RAE

I do hope Joely Richardson has stopped crying by tonight's second episode of Nip/Tuck (TV2, 9.30pm) , although I wouldn't bet on it.

Golden Globe nominations must definitely have "Cries well" on the judges' checklist (another contender: Rachel Griffiths in Six Feet Under, and she won an Emmy). Richardson seemed to spend pretty much all the pilot episode last week either in tears or on the verge of them.

Ah well, she was breaking up with husband Sean (Dylan Walsh), trying to revive her dream of going back to med school, and had done something unspeakable to her daughter's pet.

That's Nip/Tuck for you. Take any bizarre scenario, plastic surgery or otherwise, and double it. Mafia hit in the operating theatre? Of course. An attempted self-circumcision? Sure. A woman who is smuggling heroin in breast implants? Go right ahead. And then there's my favourite: gerbil down the toilet.

It was only a matter of time before a drama from the US featuring plastic surgery came along (and I wish it hadn't been scheduled after another medical drama, ER). After all, we've had plenty of the real thing, including Extreme Makeover, which is screening now on TV2, and The Clinic on TV One, not to mention the when-plastic-surgery-goes-bad horror stories.

Cosmetic procedures which were once private and the privilege of the rich and ageing are now, because of lower costs and new techniques, available to the many and we want everyone to know that we have made changes for the better to our bodies and therefore ourselves.

However, while there is some debate between Nip/Tuck characters Sean, the neurotic one, and Christian, the amoral one, about the necessity for procedures (tonight: twins who want to look different), that's not the point of the show.

It's really about the hysterical lives of the three characters, Julia (Richardson), Sean and Christian Troy (Julian McMahon), who happen to run a plastic surgery practice in Miami. I guess we can be grateful they're not cops. Or lawyers.

It's possibly another trend in US television to overheat everything to a soapy boiling point (although Footballers' Wives did a pretty good job, too) even as they're using high production values. Like The Sopranos and The Shield, it's as compelling as a train wreck.

Nip/Tuck gets away with it because it's on a cable network in the US, the television land where nudity, sex, swearing and spraying liposuction fat around a theatre is permissible. Why is everyone so upset about Janet Jackson's breast? Because it wasn't on cable.

So get ready for every extreme of emotional discourse between all characters, liberally interspersed with sex, sex, sex - and don't think that Christian the sex addict is the only one doing naughty things, either.

The Parents Television Council in the US urged advertisers to withdraw, but it's probably best to approach the show, like real plastic surgery, with caution. And a big dose of humour.