Nip/Tuck

In the tradition of its earlier cop drama The Shield, the FX network's Nip/Tuck was a maddeningly unpredictable and disturbingly graphic series, this time about a pair of Miami plastic surgeons. The show featured Dylan Walsh as Dr. Sean McNamara, who bore a low opinion of his rich but shallow customers and yearned to do more "meaningful" cosmetic surgery work (such as repairing injuries and disfiguring birth defects amongst the poor), but was defeated by his inability to relate in a normal human fashion to any other human being, including the members of his own family. Julian McMahon played McNamara's bachelor partner, Dr. Christian Troy, whose career was driven by unbridled greed and an insatiable sexual appetite. (No sooner had the series began than Troy bedded a pair of twin girls, triumphantly exulting his "Doublemint Moment.") Also seen was Joely Richardson as McNamara's frustrated wife, Julia, who had a bad habit of reacting violently to every minor setback (in one episode, she spitefully flushed the family's pet gerbil down the toilet), and who would like to have been unfaithful were she able to work up the nerve. John Hensley played Sean and Julia's son, Matt, who worried that he would remain a virgin unless his dad broke down and agreed to circumcise him. The series was rife with gory close-ups, grim humor, murder, bribery, adultery, drugs, and pedophilia. Ah, yes, something for everyone! Nip/Tuck debuted July 22, 2003.