But when one of FX’s signature series quietly wrapped last week on the Paramount lot, it did so without the usual fanfare associated with the end of a noteworthy show. In part, the silent send-off was because TV viewers won’t see the “Nip/Tuck” finale, which finished shooting on June 12, for a long time, probably as late as 2011, making it tricky to publicize. Behind the scenes too, during the last week of production, there was an awkward sense that the end had already happened, since much of the crew had already moved to creator Ryan Murphy’s new Fox musical, “Glee,” last year, and Murphy himself was out of the country location-scouting for an upcoming movie.

“It’s sad because it feels incomplete,” said script supervisor Diana Valentine, who asked the cast to sign her finale script in between takes of shooting the show’s last family dinner scene, which included almost every major character. Valentine, who joined the series in its second season, worked on “Beverly Hills, 90210″ for its entire run. “It’s not the same feeling I had when I was wrapping on ‘90210′. It feels incomplete, kind of separate. It’s very hard.”

In truth, the cast of the series that TV Guide asserted during its second season was the “coolest show on television” has been ready to move on for some time. “Nip/Tuck’s” series finale will be the show’s 100th episode, a rare marker in cable television (the only popular cable series that came close was “Sex and the City” with 94 episodes) that FX wanted to reach with its top-rated show.

But if the actors had had their way, the show would have ended in the fourth season when it was still the No. 1 cable series among 18- to 49-year-olds, a ranking it held for its first four years, and the critics were still in its corner. Though its overall viewership has been steady and strong over the years — Season 5 drew an average of 3.4 million viewers — it is now less popular in the 18-to-49 demographic than both USA’s “Burn Notice” and TNT’s ” The Closer.”

“I feel we’ve reached a creative impasse with regards to what we can do with this story,” said John Hensley, who played Matt, one of the most self-destructive characters ever created for TV. “I feel like it was, quite frankly, told a long time ago. I say that trying to be right-sized about this because I am very grateful for this opportunity. I just feel that we were a show that was very good and innovative at one point and we’ve gone the way of so many shows before us. Our moment has passed.”

“Nip/Tuck,” which used hyper-real and shocking situations — remember the murderous brother and sister known as the Carver? — to examine the price people are willing to pay for physical beauty and the internal consequences they suffer as a result, was centered on the unconditional brotherly love between two plastic surgeons, Sean McNamara ( Dylan Walsh) and Christian Troy ( Julian McMahon). Sean was the highly skilled surgeon who claimed he wanted to improve the world and felt morally superior to his best friend. Christian was the superficial ladies’ man who had more heart than he let on and made no excuses about who he was.

In the five seasons that have aired, the doctors, who are in their 40s, have almost died several times, slept with dozens of women, broken up their partnership a few times and dumped a dead body in the Florida Everglades. In the 19 new episodes, which will probably air over two seasons and may begin in January, the series will become even more operatic and dark, elements that, critics say, have diminished its pleasures over time.

“The same thing that bothers me about this show is really what was great about it,” said Walsh, taking a short break in his trailer. “It existed or came about as an antidote to ‘ ER,’ which was a great show but had such an earnest tone as if that’s reality. It didn’t include the irreverent things and wicked humor and over-the-top scenes of emotion. And ‘Nip/Tuck’ brought all that craziness, where things happened too quickly and intensely and it made you laugh while you were getting caught up in it. Of course, the longer we went, the more ridiculous it was going to seem, but that was always our thing. It really wasn’t a great show. It was a great ride.”

Especially for Walsh and McMahon, whose iconic characters boosted their careers. The two actors, who established the set’s collegial tone with their friendship, finally let go of Sean and Christian on Friday after a day of shooting broadcast promos for the show.

“You can’t deny the place that the show has in the history of television, and I feel personally that I played a pretty extraordinary character on a TV show,” McMahon said during a telephone interview.

The two stars took the crew out for a post-production celebration at Beso in Hollywood when they completed filming their last scene, a surgery with Roma Maffia, who played lesbian anesthesiologist Liz. They already had said goodbye to Joely Richardson four days earlier, whose last scene was the family dinner that echoed other family gatherings of previous seasons.

“There have been so many goodbyes that maybe, honestly, the goodbye gene is spent now and now I’m ready for this goodbye with this story,” Richardson said. But hours later, when her work on “Nip/Tuck” was over, Richardson wept as she went around the room quietly hugging everyone. Thirteen-year-old Kelsey Lynn Batelaan, who played Annie McNamara, received a long embrace from Walsh when she completed her work.

“Right now, it’s kind of overwhelming and there are mixed emotions,” Maffia said. “But I think when time passes, or when I drive by the lot, it’s gonna be like damn.”

If there is a surprise to the way “Nip/Tuck” ends, it’s in its restrained quality, which several of the actors said they appreciated after seasons of shocking and preposterous story lines.

“I’ve always thought the show should have been simpler than it was so, for me, it was nice to have a little less than what we’ve been expanding upon for the last number of years,” McMahon said. “I think you’ll have an emotionally justifiable episode in the end.”

In separate interviews, Walsh and McMahon both said that what they’d miss the most about working on the show was each other.

“I’ll miss every day sitting in one trailer or another, talking about everything going on with the show and our lives,” Walsh said. “We are what Ryan wanted the show to be. I love him. That’s the best thing I got out of the show — it was him.”

source:  http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-niptuck20-2009jun20,0,5303968.story?track=rss

Judging the worthiness of new episodes of FX’s plastic-surgery black dramedy Nip/Tuck (returning at 10 p.m. Jan. 6) feels a little like watching a Mexican telenovela in order to learn the ropes of nuanced dramatic acting.

Truth be told, this show, FX’s most ludicrous contribution to primetime, has taken the guilty-pleasure genre and twisted it into such a succulent piece of silliness, it is hard to look away. It’s kinda like — no, exactly like — a rich lady strolling through Beverly Hills after ample dosings of Botox and collagen: Sickening, stomach-turning, and you hate yourself for looking.

Tuesday’s episode kicks off precisely where we left off in the first half of Season 5. Sean McNamara’s (Dylan Walsh) crazy agent Colleen Rose (a spooky Sharon Gless), has stabbed the fair doctor like a stuffed pig inside the O.R. as he prepares to operate on his daughter, post-car accident. After we’re forced to watch him gurgle blood onto the floor, again, we jump four months into the future to find Sean very much alive, though wheelchair-bound, and teaching med-school classes. Oh, and he’s not ready to be a surgeon again, OK? “I am not ready to operate!” declares Sean with the flair of a lame Scarlett O’Hara.

Sean’s partner, Christian (Julian McMahon), accompanies their long-suffering assistant Liz (the very fine Roma Maffia) to a pre-plastic surgery screening and, while there, discovers that he himself has a life-threatening illness. (I can’t reveal more than this as this plot-point provides the only real action in the first episode.) Like everything in his life, Christian handles the news like a real a-hole and subsequently pursues a meaningless sexual encounter.

Just a few details from previous episodes, the first depicting the erstwhile Miami docs as L.A. transplants, are addressed in this episode. Sean’s ex-wife Julia (Joely Richardson), whom we don’t actually see, is still recovering from having been poisoned by her ex-lesbian lover’s teenage daughter (duh). Oh, and Matt, Sean and Julia’s loser son, has announced he will be attending community college to take pre-med courses because seeing his father in a wheelchair has inspired him to do good (!).

I’ve long been a fan of FX’s bold programming, and at one time Nip/Tuck fit nicely into its envelope-pushing lineup. But if the net wants to keep viewers raptured, especially like those of Damages, the finest drama currently not on HBO or Showtime, Nip/Tuck needs to get over the soapy silliness and rediscover its roots.

At its core, the show is about self-loathing and the impermanence of beauty. But too much camp and cockamamie storylines have obscured the program’s initial grit, and in turn the talent of its cast. So here’s hoping show creator Ryan Murphy has gotten all the telenovela out of his system and makes good use of what might be his show’s swan-song season.

And if he doesn’t, it will just be further proof that perfection — or in this case, kickass compelling TV — is as fleeting as it is elusive.

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“Tell me what you don’t like about yourself.” Doctors, I don’t like what you’ve done to a once-fascinating show. Ryan Murphy and the team behind “Nip/Tuck” missed a great opportunity with the fifth season of their cult hit show, now on DVD, and continued their series’ soapy decline.

“Nip/Tuck,” starring Dylan Walsh, Julian McMahon, Joely Richardson, John Hensley, Roma Maffia, and Kelly Carlson, from creator Ryan Murphy, had gone way off the rails with a ridiculous fourth season that turned off most of the show’s fans, even if it did maintain some headline-grabbing basic cable attention.

The team behind “Nip/Tuck” had a chance to completely hit refresh as the two lead characters left behind the bikini-clad models of Miami for the narcissistic lunatics of the city of angels
for season five.

The first episode of the season hinted at a show that had found its creative honesty and returned to the far superior first and second seasons. The fifth season premiere of “Nip/Tuck” is one of the best in the show’s history, as Drs. Sean McNamara and Christian Troy move to Los Angeles and work on an over-the-top medical drama while they deal with their own ridiculously inflated egos and deep flaws. Guest appearances by Bradley Cooper, Oliver Platt, and Lauren Hutton hinted at the fun that could come.

Make the characters relatable again and let the craziness of L.A. provide the over-the-top spark. It could have been a self-referential joy to watch Sean and Christian realize that they may have been big fish in the pond of Miami but that L.A. was too much even for them and there are hints of that through out the season, particularly in a great reality show pilot that the doctors attempt called “Plastic Fantastic”.

Instead, “Nip/Tuck” quickly became what it had been since it jumped the shark in season three - just ridiculous. By just episode four, less than a third through the season, Christian was a male pimp, Sean was infatuated with a sexy teenager, Matt was a meth addict, Julia was a lesbian, and Rosie O’Donnell was back as a guest star attacked by an eagle. Yes, an EAGLE.

It sounds like a ridiculous, soap opera
that could provide kicks like a B-movie and the fifth season of “Nip/Tuck” only possibly works when viewed in that light. There are some “did you see that?” kicks from the fifth season of “Nip/Tuck”. The show works much better as a comedy after a few drinks.

But I miss the more well-balanced tone of the first and second seasons, when I could take these characters remotely seriously and every time Murphy and his team asked me to do so again in this season that was more over-the-top than ever, it just made realize that the show has become that much more ridiculous.

Maybe it’s because of the show’s theme that any physical imperfection can be reversible but I still hold out hope that there’s one more great season of “Nip/Tuck” in the pipeline before McNamara/Troy closes its doors forever. The fifth one wasn’t it.

As if they know that the fifth season of “Nip/Tuck” is just a holding pattern for the hit show, the season is going through one of those weird, two-part things like “The Sopranos” and “Entourage” recently did. “Season Five: Part Two” debuts on January 6th on FX Networks.

The 14-episodes, 627 minutes, of the first part of the fifth season of “Nip/Tuck” are presented in matted widescreen that makes for a rather lackluster video transfer. Doesn’t it seem ironic that a show about obsession with perfection isn’t yet released on Blu-Ray?

The audio, mixed in 5.1 channels, is neither positively nor negatively remarkable in any way. And special features? There are barely any. No commentaries to speak of. Just a featurette, deleted scenes, and a gag reel. McNamara/Troy may not be what they once were, but they have legions of fans who deserve better than this below-average season and DVD.

There are a few shows that raise the ire of the Parents Television Council like “Nip/Tuck.”

Much like teen-sex-cesspools “Dawson’s Creek,” “The O.C.” and “Gossip Girl,” “Nip/Tuck” has drawn the council’s condemnation for all kinds of kinky acts — including “incestuous necrophilia” — tons of drug use and lots of miscellaneous violence (and that’s not counting the intensely depicted surgery scenes).

And, of course, that’s why viewers love it.

FX’s show about plastic surgeons/best friends/worst enemies Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) and Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) has had a seemingly never-ending list of questionable plotlines (see: rape, incest, murder, orgies, adultery, pedophilia, basically anything that could make Ned Flanders uncomfortable) and with part one of season five coming out on DVD Dec. 30 and the second part premiering on Jan. 6, there’s a lot to remember and even more to expect.

But given all the girls the doctors sleep with, all the malpractice suits that just may be warranted and all the times Sean and Christian bounce Julia (Joely Richardson) between them, it’s hard to follow all the indecency. Want to get caught up? Here is Express’ list of “Nip/Tuck’s” five most inappropriate moments — you might need a counseling session afterward.

» WHO’S YOUR NANNY?
Sean and Christian both have a knack for striking up relationships with women who wind up becoming obsessed with them (surprising, considering how misogynistic they usually both are), and in season four, Monica Wilder (Jennifer Hall) pretty much takes the cake. A prospective nanny for Sean’s newborn son, Conor, Monica doesn’t get the hint when Sean doesn’t hire her, nor after the two sleep together and he wants nothing more to do with her.

First, she tries to blackmail Sean. Then she asks him to check out her nipple for an infection, as she repeatedly attempts to breastfeed Conor (the scene is kind of like a weird mix of that one in “Fight Club” where Marla asks Edward Norton to check her breast for a lump and the one in “The Hand that Rocks the Cradle” where Rebecca De Mornay starts breastfeeding the kid that isn’t hers). And then she threatens to go to the police with a story about how Sean raped her … until she gets hit by a bus. It’s all very “Mean Girls” meets the “Lost” episode “Not in Portland,” as well as completely satisfying and utterly unnecessary.

But, hey, killing characters in unlikely ways is the easiest method of getting rid of them (just look at how Gina [Jessalyn Gilsig] gets killed off in season five: thrust off the ledge of a roof while having sex with Christian).

» A NEW PARTNERSHIP?
Christian has had sex with pretty much any woman who comes his way, from barely legal teenagers to plastic surgery patients to porn stars. But after being raped by the Carver in season three, Christian starts dreaming about having sex with Sean, furthering the idea that the two can’t live without one another.

It’s an awkward sequence to watch, and though the dream explanation makes sense (it’s not nearly as bad as “Dallas”), we can’t help but wonder: What would a relationship between Christian and Sean be like? And would they keep sharing Julia?

» D.I.Y. SURGERY
Matt McNamara (John Hensley) has always had a bit of an identity crisis: While growing up, Matt thought he was Sean’s son with Julia, only to learn that Christian is actually his biological father. Fast-forward to season three, and Matt has shaved his head, is dating a neo-Nazi girl named Ariel Alderman and beats up on pre-op transsexuals in his spare time.

But Matt somehow befriends Cherry Peck, whom he previously attacked, and asks Sean to operate on her; too bad Ariel’s dad sees the two together, kidnaps them and forces Matt to cut off Cherry’s penis first. It’s brutal, outlandish and completely cringe-inducing, and it only gets better when Matt and Cherry strike back against Mr. Alderman by shooting him in the back and burying him alive. Violence may not necessarily be the best answer, but it seems to work pretty well on “Nip/Tuck.”

» DEPANTSING THE CARVER
For seasons two and three, The Carver terrorized Miami, not only raping his victims but slashing each side of their mouths in a Joker-like fashion. Claiming that “beauty is a curse on the world,” The Carver attacked Sean, raped Christian and kidnapped his fiancee, Kimber, on their wedding day, making it look like Kimber left Christian on the altar so he wouldn’t suspect her true fate. After undoing all of the former porn star’s plastic surgeries without any anesthesia, The Carver continued terrorizing the city.

But the mask-wearing creeper’s identity had to be revealed eventually, and it was vaguely anticlimactic when The Carver turned out to be fellow plastic surgeon Quentin Costa (Bruno Campos), who already seemed like a douche (specifically, he was dating Julia to spite Sean while also sleeping with a variety of coeds and dudes on the side). More surprising than what was under his mask, though, was what under his pants: Nothing. In the big reveal scene, Quentin is bizarrely like a Ken doll down there, causing viewers everywhere to scratch their heads in confusion and try to figure out exactly how he was having so much sex if he wasn’t actually, well, having it.

» MOMMY DEAREST
If there’s a character on “Nip/Tuck” with a more complicated back story than Ava Moore (Famke Janssen), we haven’t seen them yet. Once a gay man who worked as an escort to older women, Ava — then called Avery — was in love with Dr. Barrett Moore (the always enjoyable Alec Baldwin, in yet another weird-but-great role), and convinced Barrett to perform sex reassignment surgery on him so that the two could be together as man and wife. After Avery became Ava, the relationship between herself and Barrett fell apart and she fled with their son, Adrian (who was biologically related to Barrett but not to her).

Ava then modeled herself as a life coach; though she was hired by Sean to treat Julia, she soon seduced Matt. The two began a relationship, and Adrian, who is similar in age to Matt, became envious — which isn’t surprising in and of itself, right? Any child whose parent starts dating someone comparable to their own age must feel strange. Except for where Adrian is also sleeping with Ava, in a nauseatingly incestuous twist that develops into rabid jealousy on Adrian’s part, an ultimatum from him to Ava and his suicide in front of her.

The whole interchange, and Ava’s abandonment of Adrian’s body on the floor of her apartment as she leaves to board a plane to Paris, is pretty shocking, especially because the Ava-Matt-Adrian saga took place in the second season of “Nip/Tuck,” back when the show’s plotlines weren’t as twisted as they are now. Maybe this subplot was the turning point; if so, we wouldn’t be surprised.

The cable network has launched a contest within MySpace’s TV section The Channel which invites users to upload personal video testimonials on why they qualify to interview the show’s stars Dylan Walsh and Julian McMahon.

The deadline to submit is Jan. 7, with the winner to be announced on Jan. 23.

Soon after, the user-conducted interview, which will take place on the Nip/Tuck set in Los Angeles, will be available for all fans of the show to stream at Myspace.com/the-channel.

The sixth season of Nip/Tuck debuts on FX on Jan. 6.

Julian news has been nonexistent these past couple months. I’m hoping that when Nip/Tuck resumes, things will pick up. The promised new layout is coming soon. I did have one all set to debut a couple weeks ago but I decided I didn’t like it so I started over. I really like how the new one is turning out so it should be up soon.

As for site news… if all goes well, I should have the new layout up this weekend.