After four years and 59 episodes, Nip/Tuck needed a face lift. When the widely-considered lackluster fourth season, their worst yet, was over, it was clear that the continuing adventures of Drs. Christian Troy and Sean McNamara needed a kick in the well-defined ass for the fifth season. What better way to revive a show about fame and vanity than move the increasingly campy proceedings to the city of angels? The fifth season of Nip/Tuck finds everyone's favorite "will they or won't they" couple (Christian and Sean have so much sexual tension between each other that the season premiere features a basketball game that could be read entirely as double entendres) closing shop in Miami and moving all the way to the other coast. A lot of shows have made moves like the one that creator Ryan Murphy is attempting in the fifth season of Nip/Tuck. Most of them fail like last-minute Hail Mary passes to save a game that's already been lost. Believe it or not, this one connects. From the very first episode of the fifth season, Nip/Tuck has a renewed energy that it definitely hasn't had since season two and arguably since season one. You could say that Christian and Sean should have been in L.A. all along, but it's THIS particular Drs. Troy and McNamara, older and not really wiser, who make the perfect fit with all the other lost angels.

The season premiere of the fifth season - "Carly Summers" - opens a few months after Sean and Christian have tried to make a go in L.A. They're not getting anywhere in a city where everybody already has a plastic surgeon and they find themselves needing what everyone seems to have nowadays - a publicist. The person in charge of trying to get them into the spotlight does so in two ways, by landing them a major Hollywood actress for a client and by getting them consulting gigs on the hottest new show in Tinseltown - "Hearts and Scalpels". The idea is that Christian and Sean will not only share some of their most ridiculous stories for the small screen but also have speaking roles at the same time. Meanwhile, a hotshot producer shows up in the office for a little bit of surgery to repair the scars caused him by his dominatrix. It looks like Hollywood isn't all that different from Miami.

Luckily, that last statement isn't true for viewers. You can feel a renewed sense of energy at the start of season five of Nip/Tuck and it's not only because buzzkills like John Hensley as Matt or Joely Richardson as Julia are absent. Hensley and Richardson have done great work for four years, but we need a new supporting cast on this show, one that can revitalize it, and that seems to be exactly what Murphy is giving Nip/Tuck fans. Based on the first episode, it seems clear that a great supporting ensemble, including Kitchen Confidential's Bradley Cooper, regular Christopher Guest collaborator Jennifer Coolidge, the always-great Oliver Platt, and even the timeless Lauren Hutton will have arcs that are several episodes long. It's not just the change in location, but the people they found there that has taken years off the life of Nip/Tuck.

Nip/Tuck fell into a trap of its own making. As Sean says to one of the "Hearts and Scalpels" actors, "It's a mistake to underestimate the intelligence of your audience." Nip/Tuck had done that for a few years. When the show started, it wasn't nearly the camp-fest it became in later years. Yes, it was over-the-top, but the focus of those first two seasons are on the people, not their crazy behavior. Seasons three and four felt like they were much more concerned with pushing the envelope than anything approaching reality. It feels like the fifth season could be the perfect combination of the two, taking the characters we know best - Sean and Christian - and putting them in a world where anything is possible. "Reality" in L.A. is different than anywhere else and it helps make Nip/Tuck different than anything else on TV. For the first time in a few years, I mean that in a good way.