Nip/Tuck

Sean McNamara and Christian Troy make a living changing how other people look, while doing considerably less well with the problems in their own partnership. Nip/Tuck uses a plastic-surgery practice as the setting for a deliberately excessive character drama.

Dylan Walsh and Julian McMahon give the friendship enough history to sustain affection, competition and resentment at once. The patients bring new situations, but the continuing interest lies in two men who know one another too well to accept their preferred self-descriptions.

The series is not restrained. Graphic surgery, sexual material and increasingly extravagant plotting are part of its approach. At its best, the excess exposes something about insecurity or vanity; at its weakest, another shock becomes a substitute for development.

The central pair make the earlier material worth trying if that tone appeals. Six Feet Under offers a more measured drama around an unusual family business. Nip/Tuck is much more interested in polished appearances coming apart in public.