Nip/Tuck: 'Kiki' (3x02)

Nip/Tuck is a show that always seems to be trying to push the boundaries of audience tolerance, putting stuff in the show that will make you say, "They've gone too far this time." And this season seems to be trying to take things the furthest they can go, so last episode we get nasty fat woman stuck to couch and this week it's bunch of transsexuals urinating on Matt, throw in a barely motivated threesome and every character smoking pot and you've got something to offend everyone. I'm not offended by the content, but I think in their attempt to push the boundaries, the show can lose some of its dramatic integrity.

Being on F/X , they have stricter limits than shows on HBO, and you won't hear the word Fuck or see nudity outsideof the surgery, but at the same time the show seems much more obsessed with how far it can go than something like Six Feet Under ever was. SFU could show you a dead body, but the focus was never on how nasty it was, it was merely backdrop for the real dramatic importance. However, Nip/Tuck is all about surface. One could say this is appropriate in a show about plastic surgery, but there's a reason that beauty is more than skin deep. So, maybe stop trying to push the boundaries of acceptability and start trying to restore a sense of order to the character arcs.

Even though the show's character arcs are thinly motivated, it's still very entertaining to watch. It's just I can't identify with any of these people, or empathize with them. I don't really care what happens to them, so I view the show as a passive observer. The only consistently entertaining characters are Christian and Kimber, and they barely appeared in this episode.

So, I watch, I enjoy, but I don't engage, and that's the show's main flaw.