SLICE-OF-LIFE STORIES FX'S `NIP/TUCK' HOLDS A MIRROR TO THE NARCISSISM AND INSECURITIES OF OUR BEAUTY-OBSESSED CULTURE.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

Euphemistically vague as it is, nearly everyone understands the meaning of having ``a little work done.''

You know it when a friend confesses to it. You really know it when one friend whispers cattily about another that she's had ``a little work done.''

FX's new 90-minute drama series, ``Nip/Tuck,'' beginning tonight, is set against the backdrop of a successful Miami plastic surgery practice in which two old med school buddies, Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) and Christian Troy (Julian McMahon), are partners.

On the surface, it's all about vanity: Instant fat loss through liposuction, making a good nose even better, thickening a hairline or a lip line, pinning ears, plumping up breasts or buttocks.

But series creator Ryan Murphy says he wants the show to be not so much about the glorious results as it is about an individual's quest for change, and his or her belief that altering the package will somehow make the contents new and improved.

As for that catch phrase, the brief but graphic surgery scenes should do away with it, and may give pause to some considering having ``a little work done.''

Murphy, a former journalist, said the idea for ``Nip/Tuck'' stems from a feature story he planned to write years ago. He had read about calf implants for men and thought the idea so ridiculous that he set out to write a ``cheeky'' story from a prospective patient's point of view. He set up a consultation with a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills.

``Within five minutes he had told me six or seven things that I needed to have done personally to my face and body that would make me a happier person,'' Murphy said. ``And I was stunned at how I just kept nodding my head and thinking, yeah, that makes perfect sense.

``So, needless to say, I never wrote the article,'' he said. ``But how vulnerable I was to that idea that I could fix things in my life by fixing my exterior always stuck with me.''

His lead characters are an attractive lot, as one would expect. But Murphy wastes no time in showing viewers that all is not well. Troy comes off as a shallow womanizer who flunked his ethics class, and McNamara is a skilled surgeon but an unskilled husband and father whose marriage to Julia (Joely Richardson) is crumbling because of emotional neglect.

There's also a love affair, past and possibly future, involving Julia and Troy.

Murphy, whose television credits include the 1999 WB series ``Popular,'' says he has long been fascinated by Americans' obsession with their image and is heartened by viewer appetite for such matters. He admits he's hooked on makeover shows, from wardrobe redos on ``Oprah'' to ``Extreme Makeover.''

``Television, advertising, magazines, movies - it's all about the culture of youth,'' Murphy said. ``And it's about trying to maintain the status quo to be loved.

``The show that I want to do is a show about how people transform their lives on every level, and I just think that plastic surgery is a great jumping-off point,'' Murphy said. ``In fact, the opening of every show is, 'Tell me what you don't like about yourself.' ''

The reality show ``Extreme Makeover'' is a testament to America's curiosity about external perfection. Ordinary applicants submit videos with a description of what they want fixed and why, and producers pick a pair of contestants each week to submit to an all-expenses-paid medical makeover ranging from tummy tucks and facelifts to breast jobs and dental appliances. It started as a one-time special last December and proved so popular that it's part of this fall's weekly schedule, at 9 p.m. Thursdays.

While ``Extreme Makeover'' shows the consultations with doctors and the six-week recovery process, it treats the surgery footage gingerly in comparison with ``Nip/Tuck.''

Former surgical nurse Linda Klein is the technical consultant on scenes involving cutting, implanting and suturing. The set on Paramount Studio's Stage 1 brims with body parts, from a life-cast bust of a character getting a face overhaul and flat buttocks awaiting implants to a breast implant gone askew. When the camera is rolling, synthetic blood flows through a thin tube to the tip of a scalpel.

Murphy says an average of only two minutes of each episode's 66 minutes of film are spent on surgery shots, but he concedes they are minutes many viewers will be watching through their fingers.

``Some of the fast-motion editing (of the head surgery) in the pilot actually occurred because the editor couldn't watch the sequence cut in real time,'' said executive producer Greer Shephard. ``So we speeded it up simply to get through the process and ultimately gave birth to a style.''

Richardson said she has considered ``having a little work done,'' only to repair two scars near her right eye from childhood injuries. But seeing the ``Nip/Tuck'' footage has not encouraged her to pursue it. ``I think sometimes as you get older, you care less,'' she said.

To research his role, McMahon spent a couple of days with two Southern California plastic surgeons, speaking with them and watching them in the surgery suite.

``One of them - it was really funny - I was sitting in his office, and I said, 'So, what do you think I should have done?' '' McMahon said. ``And he goes, 'Oh, you could lose a little on the nose, and do a little bit,' and I was, 'Oh, hold on, hold on - I was kidding. I was kidding!' ''

Peter Ligouri, president and CEO of FX, said the often violent cop drama ``The Shield,'' his network's top-rated series, has shown him the best way to address controversial programming with viewers and advertisers, starting with heavy use of ``viewer discretion'' advisories.

``Whether this show is more offensive or not I think is in the eyes of the beholder,'' Ligouri said. ``We're not out here trying to push the boundaries of taste. We're actually trying to push the boundaries of creativity.''

But the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, after reviewing the first two episodes, says ``Nip/Tuck'' ``in no way represents the way in which qualified, professional and ethical plastic surgeons manage their practices or care for their patients.''

``Everything's been taken to an extreme with no logic to it,'' said ASPS president James Wells, a Long Beach-based surgeon. He found fault with Troy's routinely unethical conduct as well as the brutal handling of patients during surgery.

``Plastic surgery is joked about in a lot of areas,'' he said. ``To me this is taken to the extreme. It's way beyond the pale.''

Murphy said he has heard such complaints, but he also has received endorsements from some plastic surgeons.

``I don't think we are giving the industry a bad name,'' he said. ``I think that we're giving that industry a face, and listen - plastic surgery is a very provocative, controversial arena, and I think that people will be split in terms of what people think of those surgeries and what the doctors think.''

The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery said 6.9 million surgical (No. 1: liposuction) and nonsurgical (No. 1: wrinkle-relieving Botox injections) procedures were performed in the United States last year. Ligouri noted if all those patients tuned into ``Nip/Tuck'' out of curiosity, it would more than double the audience of ``The Shield.''

``It is certainly the hope of the network that every person acquainted with plastic surgery knows about the show and makes their own decision,'' Ligouri said. ``This is a topic that is just such a part of our culture, and it is played out on many moral and ethical levels differently every single day, and we're going to play with that. I think it will touch people who thought about it, had it and would reject it outright.''

Valerie Kuklenski, [phone]

valerie.kuklenski(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Cutting insight

FX's `Nip/Tuck' drama goes behind the bandages of a plastic surgery practice

(2) Series creator Ryan Murphy

(3) Dylan Walsh, left, and Julian McMahon are plastic surgeons with wildly different personal and professional styles in ``Nip/Tuck.''

(4) ``Nip/Tuck's'' Drs. Christian Troy (McMahon, left) and Sean McNamara (Walsh) consult with a patient (Kinsey Packard).