Nip/Tuck: The Complete First Season

Is it too much of a pun to call Nip/Tuck cutting? You might reasonably expect a series about Miami plastic surgeons to be obsessed with physical perfection, but you may be surprised to discover that Nip/Tuck is an audacious and biting exploration of the psychological roots of the drive for perfection--on both sides of the knife. "Tell me what you don't like about yourself," medical partners Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) and Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) ask each incoming client, but the episodes are just as much concerned with what uptight McNamara and playboy Troy don't like about their own lives, and the pair's very different midlife crises form a narrative arc over the bold and surprising tales of mobsters seeking facial reconstruction, porn stars with bruised buttocks, mid-transformation transgenders, gorgeous twins who no longer want to be identical, and others with serious identity issues. Granted, this isn't for the squeamish or the easily offended--the surgeries are shockingly graphic, and so is the sexuality, not just physically but also emotionally--but even though Nip/Tuck's debut 13 episodes of fragile humanity laid bare are sometimes hard to watch, they're also well worth it. DVD extras include a trio of behind-the-scenes documentaries, an outtakes gag reel, deleted scenes, and a music video. Highly recommended. (M. Johanson)