shipperx | Whee! Nip/Tuck Premiere Tonight!

From USA TODAY:

'Nip/Tuck' to cut deeper

As if there's not enough sex appeal in FX's edgy plastic-surgery drama Nip/Tuck, a new doctor is about to muscle in on the practice of Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) and Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh).

He's played by Bruno Campos, once one of People magazine's "sexiest men alive."

In Season 3, which begins tonight (10 ET/PT), creator Ryan Murphy says, viewers should expect the show to be "bigger" all around: "Everything has expanded. The cast is bigger, surgeries are bigger, locations are bigger." Making appearances this season will be Rhona Mitra (Boston Legal) and Anne Heche.

"With success comes growth," Murphy says.

Nip/Tuck has grown in two years into one of FX's biggest success stories and a pop-culture darling — as well as a lightning rod for controversy. The show won the 2005 Golden Globe award for best drama, just as TV Guide was dubbing it "The Coolest Show on TV." The Season 2 finale was the most-watched single episode of a series ever for FX, with 5.3 million viewers.

Nip/Tuck pushes the envelope with its daring and graphic surgery scenes and story lines, including a transsexual life coach who was sleeping with her son.

Last week, Parents Television Council president Brent Bozell sent a letter to Howard Stringer, CEO of Sony, admonishing the corporate giant for sponsoring the premiere episode and calling Nip/Tuck "one of the most sexually explicit, profane and violent programs in the history of American television."

This guy must not watch Deadwood or Rome...

Murphy points out that there is only an average of 32 seconds of surgery in every hour-long episode, and this season will continue the show's message. "What this show says is that real change happens internally, that maybe you should book a consultation with a shrink instead of a plastic surgeon."

He added Campos, playing Dr. Quentin Costa, because every show needs an enemy. "I feel like every season is only as good as the adversary," Murphy says. "On 24, the adversary can be a nuclear bomb. Our adversary has to be a person."

Last season, it was Famke Janssen as Ava Moore, transsexual therapist. This year, Murphy says, it's the new doctor, who will bother both Sean and Christian as he reflects a side of each of them. "He's a better womanizer than Christian and a better doctor than Sean."

For Brazilian-born Campos, 31, it's a big break. "I was scouted for this arts school for young kids in Toronto. I was 8. I was a quiet, to-himself kind of boy. I won this little art competition.

"When I was there, there were a lot of girls in the theater class down the hall. It was my first encounter with these exciting girls. I wanted to go to do scenes with them. Now I'm doing hard-core Nip/Tuck."

The other adversary this season is The Carver, the mysterious masked maimer who ended Season 2 with a cliffhanger as he — or she — was about to slice Dr. Troy.

Once The Carver was introduced, there was a bump in ratings, so Murphy will play that mystery up this season. The cast members are so intrigued that each one has seen Murphy privately to find out. But he won't tell anybody; viewers will find out who it is in "the last shot of the last show this year," he says.

"We take the ride, just like someone who watches the show takes the ride," says John Hensley, 27, who plays Matt, the 18-year-old biological son of Dr. Troy who grew up as Dr. McNamara's son. "We live the show script by script."