The Series So Raunchy, It Broke The Boundaries Of Acceptable TV

By Jonathan Klotz
| Published 10 seconds ago

By the early 2000’s cable networks were desperate to produce the next big series. HBO’s success with The Sopranos, Sex and the City, and Oz proved cable was the next big thing, but where the premium channels had an advantage and could show all the sex and violence they wanted, FX decided to push as far as they could with their hit 2003 series, Nip/Tuck.

The medical drama launched the career of megaproducer Ryan Murphy and, alongside The Shield, turned the Fox cable channel into a mid-2000’s rating juggernaut. Today, Nip/Tuck has broken free of a cable subscription and is streaming for free on PLEX. 

Tell Me What You Don’t Like About Yourself

Nip/Tuck follows two plastic surgeons, the family man Dr. Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh, a “that guy” actor you’ve seen in nearly everything) and the playboy Dr. Christian Troy (the late Julian McMahon after he left Charmed), as they cater to the rich of Miami. Episodes usually started with “Tell me what you don’t like about yourself” as the patient of the week went through everything they wanted changed. Every season also had overarching stories, from Season’s crime boss attempting to get out of the country to a multi-season serial killer arc that turned the show from a cable hit into a phenomenon. 

Seasons 2 and 3 follow “The Carver,” a black-clad masked villain named for carving up their victim’s faces after the attack. “Who is The Carver?” was a popular topic in the early days of social media, including a MySpace page dedicated to the killer that featured exclusive audio logs and videos. Today, that’s basic Social Media Marketing 101, but in 2004, this was mindblowing immersion. 

The actual Carver storyline is, in retrospect, hilariously awful, because again, this is a Ryan Murphy series, and over 20 years later, everyone’s used to his bizarre, off-the-wall twists for the sake of having a twist. Nip/Tuck was the first time Murphy was allowed to indulge, before Glee, American Horror Story, and 911 exposed his bad creative habits. It wasn’t only watching Christian land every woman who crosses his path into bed that pushed up against what was allowed to air, but also the gory plastic surgery scenes and language, which both shocked and excited audiences in the early 2000s. 

A Bonkers Series Decades Ahead Of Its Time

Nip/Tuck skyrocketed in ratings with Season 2 and 3, reaching upwards of 6 million viewers each week. Back then, the weekly airings were perfect for Murphy’s twist-filled writing style that comes off as annoying in the era of binge-watching. Later seasons relocated the show’s setting to Los Angeles and made it feel a little less unique and special as a result, which shows in the ratings falling back down to 3 million, then 2 million for Season 6. These days, those numbers would still be good enough be one of the top shows on cable. 

It’s a medical drama, it’s a black comedy, and it’s a satire; Nip/Tuck doesn’t fit neatly into any genre. If you go back and binge the series, you’ll see the building blocks for today’s modern cable dramas. Ryan Murphy’s vision was so far ahead of its time that, despite airing on FX, his first major hit feels like it’s from last week and not 23 years ago.