Parents' Guide to

Nip/Tuck

By Melissa Camacho, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 18+

Controversial plastic surgery drama; NOT for kids.

TV FX Drama 2003
Nip/Tuck Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this TV show.

Community Reviews

age 17+

Based on 6 parent reviews

age 17+

Very adult show

Contains explicit sexual content and graphic surgeries with nudity.
age 18+

plastic surgery drama with an intruiging

Nip/Tuck is a compelling and unique medical drama/thriller that really portrays the Dr. 90210 feel, especially the doctors and the patients throughout the series, and deals with an enormous amount of very dark and mature themes such as rape, pedophilia, incest, illicit drug abuse, and suicide. There are scenes of highly realistic and graphic plastic surgery procedures in every episode, which really coordinates the viewer into watching an actual operation - facelits, liposuction, tummy tucks, reconstructive surgery, breast augmentations, etc. The ultimate concern about Nip/Tuck is the tremendous amount of strong sexual content, which there's sex scenes in every episode of Nip/Tuck and they are very graphic and explicit, though no graphic nudity (genitals) is shown, and there's also several portrayals of homosexual and transsexual relationships. There's also graphic talk and references about sexual acts, porn, masturbation, rape, anatomical terms, and incest. Language isn't that strong, which there's only uses of godd**n and sh*t, which is as strong as it goes, accompanied by words such as d**k and p*ssy. There are a few scenes of violent and disturbing scenes, such as the incidents and encounters with the Carver, a serial rapist who cuts the faces of young women, and a ruthless druglord who smuggles heroin in women's breasts. Drug use is also avid and common in this series, which some characters, even teenagers, are shown abusing street drugs (heroin, cocaine), alcohol, and others like ecstasy. The amount of graphic surgical procedures, strong disturbing violence, dark subject matter, strong sexual content, and illicit drug use makes this an adults only tv series.

This title has:

Too much violence
Too much sex
Too much swearing
Too much drinking/drugs/smoking

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (6):
Kids say (7):

Nip/Tuck is well written and highly entertaining. It presents medical cases that are based on fact, and it exposes some of the interesting challenges faced by the medical community when trying to balance the practice of medicine with the profit-and-narcissism-based business that plastic surgery has become.

But the show is definitely not for kids -- even most teens. It's a purposely controversial series that presents strong themes with few boundaries, and it contains a fair amount of sexually explicit imagery. This, combined with the graphic depictions of surgical procedures that are more shocking than educational, translates into a well-deserved TV-MA rating.

TV Details

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