I'll tell you what I like about Nip/Tuck: Season Three, which we've just completed on DVD: its 14 episodes flew by. Despite the crass way it was sold when it debuted on Sky One, and the initially offputting gloss of the look, the Miami-set cosmetic surgery drama has had us hooked in from show one. We were perplexed when Channel 4 let their option expire after season two, and, since we didn't have Sky at that time, were disappointed not to be able to keep up with the unravelling lives of its two surgeons, Sean McNamara (forever worried-looking Dylan Walsh) and Christian Troy (mannequin-like Julian McMahon). So the box set, as is becoming increasingly the case, is the new TV.

At the end of season two, the Carver had appeared to make our heroes' lives a grisly misery - a mysterious serial disfigurer (not a killer at that stage), who cut an ear-to-ear smile in the faces of beautiful women, leading to McNamara Troy getting involved in pro bono work for publicity, and eventually embroiling the pair in the violence. Both Sean and Christian were attacked, and Sean and Julia's (Joely Richardson) funny-lookin' son Matt (John Hensley) found out he was really Christian's, after finding out that his older-woman girlfriend Ava (Famke Janssen) was post-op transgender.

What's great about this series is that just when you think they've done all the possible permutations about cosmetic surgery, the writers come up with some more. This season we had the 480-pound, morbidly obese woman who had fused to the couch she'd been sitting on for three years and had to be surgically removed (to the tune of Elbow's Any Day Now, obviously), the gorilla who needed face surgery in order to mate successfully, the gang-member who wanted his gang tattoos removed, an HIV positive man with hollow cheeks, two students with their faces superglued to a third's arse after a fraternity prank, the woman who wanted to look like her younger self so that her Alzheimer's husband would recognise her again (that was a sad episode), and they even threw in the ER influenced plane crash episode (cue: lots of first degree burns). This was the most inventive season yet, and all the while, our characters' lives fell to bits, with Sean and Julia going through the pain of separation, Matt dallying first with a transexual, then a girl with a far-right Nazi father (two storylines that later merged), and Christian attempting to put his life in order by marrying ex-porn star Kimber (Kelly Carlson) - guess how well that went - all the while haunted by his own Carver attack, during which he was anally raped, with a strap-on. And there was a storyline about face cream made from sperm that involved the real Joan Rivers, as herself. Camp? You could say that.

This show is not for Daily Mail readers. Dealing with taboo issues is its badge of honour, and the gruesomely realistic surgery scenes still casually punctuate. Despite the glamorous sheen and the ho-hum professional attitude to surgical vandalism, Nip/Tuck constantly asks questions, and Sean and Christian both have their moments of doubt. The introduction of Quentin Costa (the brilliantly-named Bruno Campos), the new surgeon drafted in while Christian convalesced, apparently bisexual, really mixed things up well, and of course the Carver arc gave the whole series somewhere definite to go, with the weirdo's identity revealed in the "season finale" (ie. last show). Vanessa Redgrave provided great moments of comedy as Julia's mother, and Rhona Mitra (who used to be the 3D version of Lara Croft) made an impact as the English homicide detective. Season four airs, on US cable channel FX (where it is apparently the most-watched cable show, with upwards of 5.7 milllion viewers), in September. Do we get FX? I'll have to check.