I gotta say, I was a little surprised by how much I enjoyed last night's Season 5 premiere of Nip/Tuck.When the writers had Drs. Sean McNamara and Christian Troy move out to Hollywood at end of last year, I wasn't thrilled. I kinda liked that the show was set in Miami and not in L.A. (like most shows on TV). Also, I thought it was kinda desperate for them to flip the script in such a big way.
Then again, flipping the script in a big way is EXACTLY what the show needed since Sean and Christian had pretty much gotten into every conceivable crazy situation in Miami and all the main characters had slept with each other. Also, it's a bold move to completely change the setting of a popular show that's a proven hit, and I applaud them for that.
In the premiere episode, "Carly Summers", the boys are in their new Hollywood office shooting hoops (wha?!), Liz has joined them (yay!) and they're struggling. They can't get any clients because no one knows who they are and plastic surgeons are a dime a dozen out west (who knew?)
After unsuccessfully (and semi-pathetically) trying to cruise for business in a club (I enjoy watching Sean trying to be smooth), the fellas meet up with a publicist named Fiona (Lauren Hutton) who offers to help them get work for $5,000/month.
I'm loving the concept of this season, as Fiona hooks the boys up with a consulting gig on a hilariously bad medical "drama" called "Hearts N Scalpels". It really wasn't that much worse than "Grey's Anatomy" to be honest.
There began the great, entertaining parade of (mostly) over-the-top guest stars. There's Oliver Platt as the effeminate "Hearts N Scalpels" showrunner, who would be more annoying if he weren't played by the brilliant Oliver Platt. There's Bradley Cooper, playing a mildly psychotic actor with the same gusto he used to play the psychotic boyfriend in "Wedding Crashers" as the show's star, Aidan Stone, who is almost certain to tangle with Christian in the near future. Craig Bierko, who was in "Boston Legal" for a few minutes last year, popped up as masochistic studio exec Bob Easton and delivered the most cringe-worthy scenes.
The ladies were pretty well represented. In addition to Hutton, we had Tia Carrerre as Easton's dominatrix, Mistress Dark Pain, who seems to have developed a crush on Sean, Jennifer Coolidge (who's fantastic in EVERYTHING) as an actress playing the part of "Pussy Lips" or "Lady Cha Cha Lips."
Finally, there's Daphne Zuniga (Melrose Place) as Carly Summers an actress who's about to be over-the-hill that Christian talks into having plastic surgery. When he pulled out the lipstick and started doing his routine of outlining her flaws, and he wrote on her painting instead of her, I was like "hey, don't do that!" until I realized that it would've been even more degrading if he'd written on her. Nice symmetry, by the way, in having him do that to Kimber in the pilot, and in their first episode in L.A.
It was also great (if a little predictable) to see Sean become the breakout "star" for his brief role on the show after Christian had hairplugs put in (and Julian McMahon delivered Christian's big speech in terrifically bad, stilted way).
Although Christian has his tender moments (it was nice to see the boys brought his son Wilbur on the trip, because they could've easily dropped him, and I don't think anyone would've noticed or cared) we were reminded how much of an evil bastard he can be, as he was openly jealous of Sean and had leaked the news of Carly's secret plastic surgery to US Weekly by the end of the episode.
So what do you think of McNamara/Troy in Hollywood? How do you think they're going to get Matt, Kimber and Julia out west (you just know they are)? Who was your favorite guest star last night? Finally, when did these guys have time to learn how to play basketball?
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