Nip / Tuck
Nip/Tuck is an Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning American television medical drama series created by Ryan Murphy for FX Networks. The show follows the lives of two Miami plastic surgeons, Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) and Christian Troy (Julian McMahon). The show, while not strictly a soap opera, has some story arcs.
In its debut season, Nip/Tuck was the highest-rated new series on American basic cable, and the highest rated basic cable series of all for the 18-49 and 25-54 age demographics. The fourth season of the series premiered on September 5, 2006 on FX Networks.The fifth season will have its premiere on October 23, 2007, and will consist of 22 episodes,making it the longest season of the show yet, with Joely Richardson returning for 15 of those episodes.
The Parents Television Council has criticized the show.The show is, however, shown at a late hour with multiple 'Viewer Discretion Advised' warnings. A particular scene involving a foursome pushed the PTC into starting a campaign to get the show taken off the air by writing to the sponsors of the show and threatening to boycott their products.
Another scene the PTC criticized depicted a funeral home worker removing and assembling body parts from dead women, including his sister's head, then sewing them together to make "the ideal woman". The PTC president described it in a decency hearing as "incestuous necrophilia.Sony, arguably the biggest sponsor, continues to support the show.
Nip/Tuck's fans stand behind it, arguing in its defense that, from a fictional perspective, the show has explored things that have already happened and continue to happen and have been documented in historical newspaper stories anyone could read.
Nip/Tuck became an instant basic cable hit from its 2003 series premiere and has grown in audience ever since.
For its third season, FX aired Nip/Tuck solely in the fall of 2005, instead of during the summer season like the two years prior. John Landgraf, president of FX, stated that such a move was a "huge risk" since it stacked up "against the full barrage of fall network competition.
"Despite some critical backlash on its third season, like the grade of D+ from Entertainment Weekly,the story arc involving The Carver attracted an audience to the series larger than any season before, culminating in a December 20, 2005 two-hour season finale, entitled Cherry Peck / Quentin Costa, which became the most-watched program in the history of the FX network.
Including Cherry Peck / Quentin Costa, three episodes of Nip/Tuck rank as the three most-watched programs ever on FX. The second season finale, entitled Joan Rivers, which aired on October 5, 2004, drew 5.2 million viewers.
It was then eclipsed on September 20, 2005 when the third season premiere, entitled Momma Boone, drew roughly 5.3 million viewers. Exactly three months later on December 20, 2005, the aforementioned third season finale, entitled Cherry Peck / Quentin Costa, drew 5.7 million viewers. Of those 5.7 million viewers, 3.9 million viewers were in the 18-49 age group demographic, "making the finale the No. 1 episode among the key advertising demographic of any cable series in 2005. It's also the largest demographic number for any single telecast in the network's history,"according to Zap2It.
According to the September 8, 2006 Mediaweek column The Programming Insider, "the fourth season-premiere on Tuesday, September 5, 2006, from 10-11:10 pm averaged a stellar 4.8 million total viewers and 3.4 million adults 18-49, building over its season three average by 25 percent and 26 percent, respectively. Nip/Tuck's performance among adults 18-49 ranks as basic cable’s top-rated season-premiere in the demo for 2006, as of September 8, 2006."
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