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Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
High rollers, high fashion and high teenagers are back with the return of the nighttime soap in "Skin," "Nip/Tuck" and "The OC." But only one proves truly bubblicious.
Oct 20, 2003 | "Get me a warrant for Goldman. Let's bust his rich ass!"
"Do you always drink like that?"
"What do you do with your days, Julia? You shop, you get your vagina waxed like some porn star!"
"You tell your son to keep his filthy hands off my daughter!"
Do you hear that? It's the sound of claws coming out, of demon red lipstick being applied, of bourbon being poured into crystal, of old clichés being unpacked, of Ming vases breaking into a million pieces a few inches from some insensitive high roller's head. FX's "Nip/Tuck" and Fox's "The OC" and "Skin" have invited back the nighttime soap, and everyone is invited to the party: shady politicians, greedy wives, porn moguls, beautiful teenagers, real estate mavens and, of course, an innocent outsider, to be bewildered by the preciousness and egotism of the ultrarich.
Nighttime TV hasn't been this full of vitriolic vim and vigor since Krystle and Alexis took that immortal dive into a swimming pool, Lucy stocked prescription meds in her handbag, and Connie Sellecca paced the gilded lobby of her "Hotel." But will Fox and FX, the first to dive unabashedly into an abyss of sequins and Seagram's, manage to avoid slipping down that soapy slope into melodrama? Can they jack up the stakes without falling prey to goofy conspiracies and long-lost twins? Can their actors give subtle performances when delivering lines like "Sometimes I hate being your daughter!" or "When was the last time we went to bed when you didn't hate me?"
My sources say no. But would we even want them to? The nighttime soap is built like a DeLorean: fast, conspicuous, impractical and notoriously unreliable. We can trust "The OC's" portrait of Orange County about as much as we can rely on "The Jetsons" for an accurate glimpse into the future. Accuracy is sacrificed for campy, glittery fun, and we wouldn't have it any other way. The important question for such shows is similar to that which you'd ask of reality TV: Does it leave us wanting more? For the newest nighttime soaps, the results are decidedly mixed.
Surprisingly, FX's "Nip/Tuck" is perhaps the most melodramatic of the three shows, resembling "Six Feet Under" in its format (only here, the new clients being worked on are alive), but replacing artfully crafted dialogue and subtle shifts in the psychosocial atmosphere with on-the-nose shouting matches and a steady parade of circus freaks. Womanizing Christian (Julian McMahon) and uptight family man Sean (Dylan Walsh) are old friends and plastic surgeons who share an ethically unsound practice that services a debased and deranged clientele, from the obese, gun-toting girl who stopped taking her lithium to the illegal immigrant hotties smuggling heroin across the border in massive breast implants. Our intrepid heroes, meanwhile, are wildly reactive and deeply confused. While Christian is prone to sleeping with everyone from the twins who get surgery so they won't look alike anymore to the clerk at the tanning salon, Sean spends his free time daydreaming about a sexy co-worker, threatening to quit the practice because it's sick and dirty and soul-sucking, and hurling hatefulness at his equally bitter wife, Julia (Joely Richardson), who also happens to have a not-so-unrequited crush on Christian.
Needless to say, the whole mess is more than a little absurd. The lunatics behind "Nip/Tuck" seem so intent on keeping our attention that they throw believability and good taste to the wind without a second thought. Take, for example, the episode where Julia flushes her daughter's hamster down the toilet and the plumber dangles it in front of her and a guest in the dining room, saying, "There'll be no charge! I don't want your money! What kind of a mother are you?!!" You can almost see a similar scene unfolding on "Six Feet Under," but director Alan Ball would handle it with humor and absurdity. The mood on "Nip/Tuck" isn't quite right, though -- less sly and artful, more blunt and crushing, like a kick to the jaw. Thus, when Julia shows Christian her bare breasts under the auspices of getting his advice on whether she needs a boob job ("They're perfect!" he breathes), or when Sean and Julia's son Matt (John Hensley) attempts to circumcise himself, the effect is one part "Whoa!" and two parts "Oh, brother." Even when a little humor is allowed to roam around a scene, it still feels uncomfortable there, like it can't quite find a place to sit.
