Nip/Tuck

The second season of this excellent series is currently showing on TG4 here in Ireland.

It is an easy series to misjudge. My first impression was of a show high on style, low on intellect. A sun-kissed location, graphic depictions of operations performed by attractive people fond of sex, I initially dismissed it as more brainless American Sky One junk. It was a distraction to relieve boredom, an insubstantial way to pass an hour.

In reality, Nip/Tuck is enthralling, seductive, brutal, and resolutely unapologetic. Stylishly done, it is a series full of characters you cannot help but empathise with.

In the first season, a supporting character overdosed on pills rather than fight a relapse of breast cancer. It was the most powerful scene I have ever seen on television. I was stunned and the images were to continually reconjure in my mind for days afterwards.

This week, in the second season episode 'Oona Wentworth' another such scene occurred. The mind of another supporting character finally cracked with tragic consequences. Supertramp's "Goodbye Stranger" was the background music. The man stared at himself in the mirror. Shorn of hope, wracked with guilt and fuelled with self-loathing, he attempted to remove his face.

Captivated but reviled, I felt numb. Breaking out of my shock-induced reverie, I wished more television was as uncompromising.