Although it's an up-and-down ride, "Reaper" was definitely up this week …

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Best thing on "House" tonight: The shout-out to "Nip/Tuck." …

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Returns Oct. 30. Can two men
share an apartment without
driving each other crazy?

Didn't feel a great urge to watch anything that was actually on TV last night, although the DVR is well-filled. (I did give "Back to You" another try this morning, and I keep thinking it should be much funnier than it is, or even just funny. Cast is fine. Writing so-so.) Instead, I checked out two episodes from the new season of "Nip/Tuck." Good/bad news after the jump ..

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News from FX …

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The wait is over for fans. Now let's find out what kind of a fan you are.

Did you come into the show during the second or third season and stuck around because you were fascinated by the Carver storyline? Then, based on my viewing of three new episodes, this show is not for you.

There's a little bit of mystery, but nothing on the grand scale of the Carver. And it was clear at a "Nip/Tuck" press conference in July that the stars of the show, and to an extent its maker, were unhappy with the direction in the third season. What was supposed to be about the main characters, love and sex became instead a serialized thriller. (And one with a silly ending at that.)

But did you arrive at "Nip/Tuck" in the first season, or get drawn into it along the way because you wanted to see what happened to Sean, Julia and Christian — or perhaps Matt or Kimber? Then you may be very pleased with where the show is going. Those first three episodes are very much character pieces (albeit character pieces with grisly surgeries, lurid sex and a lot of emotional brutality).

Christian is on a major voyage to self-discovery. So are Sean and Julia. Certainties are shattered for all of them. Matt and Kimber, who arrive in the second episode, will go down a spiritual path that shocks the other characters. (To say more would spoil it.)

The show still repels me in a lot of ways, but I actually began to feel some sympathy for the main characters as their confusion deepens this season.

Also, I have a little more information about Monica Wilder, the character from Akron, who begins appearing in the Sept. 19 episode and will be around for more. The writers chose that location, a publicist told me, because they wanted her to be from a "wholesome, Midwestern town." But she was originally going to be from Buffalo, until series creator Ryan Murphy reminded the episode's writer that the show had already had a character from Buffalo.

But comment away on tonight's show after you see it.

Tidbits from today's press conference with "Nip/Tuck" main man Ryan Murphy and the three stars:

– The Carver is gone for good."Never appear again," Murphy said.  He wants the show this year to have more humor and more sex, away from the "very dark and very nihilistic" tone of last season. Both Julian McMahon and Joely Richardson said last year was not their favorite. And while he liked it (and the Carver drew high ratings), Murphy said the Carver storyline in particular got away from the show's core relationships — Christian, Julia and Sean. Those will be more in focus this year. But — since I've seen the first episode — still expect some serious drama, especially between Julia and Sean, because of an unexpected development with their baby; the baby will be born in the third episode. (Peter Dinklage will play their night nurse.) Christian, meanwhile, is going to have a lot of thoughts about his emotional makeup.

– Kimber, played by Kelly Carlson, will be back early in the second episode, but as a "yoga-ish, spiritual" character who enlists Matt in her opposition to plastic surgery. And Christian will treat her very badly, turning her "very vengeful. … Sort of back to the Kimber who tied him to the bed and was going to cut him up. She's back in that place, which is fun. It's funny!" Murphy insisted.

– Matt, meanwhile, will look very different; John Hensley, who plays him, has been weight-lifting. Last season's storyline will be wrapped up early (and Brittany Snow will not be back) and Matt "falls in love with Kimber."

– Rosie O'Donnell will guest-star as a white-trash woman who hits the lottery, wants plastic surgery for all her family and falls in love with Christian, creating what Murphy called "an 'Indecent Proposal' situation. She'll be in two episodes. Noting that the anti-plastic surgery O'Donnell is getting grief for appearing on a show about plastic surgeons, Murphy added that O'Donnell thinks the show is also anti-plastic surgery. The character is named Dawn Budge, but Murphy says he wasn't thinking of tennis player Don Budge when he came up with it.

– Brooke Shields will play a therapist who proves to be a sexual compulsive with a mad obsessive crush on Christian.

– Catherine Deneuve is lined up for a guest role. "When you think 'Catherine Deneuve,' you think 'French murderess,' Murphy said. "At least I do." But her storyline may also involve breast implants containing the ashes of a woman's husband.

(I know, EWWWWWW. It's "Nip/Tuck." Wait until you see what they do to Larry Hagman in the season premiere.)

– Famke Janssen will be back "eventually. Maybe not this year. But she will come back."

The fourth season will start Sept. 5.

I watched part of the season finale of "Nip/Tuck" on Tuesday night but saved most of it for the morning. And was reasonably glad I did so, given the grisly business going on in the episode. Not the sort of thing for a peaceful sleep.

I was intrigued when Liz — my upset special — was arrested as the Carver but suspected she was a dead end. Why? It was too early in the episode. You can figure out a lot about TV shows just by watching the clock, and this was a case where the big surprise seemed to come too soon to be the REAL big surprise.

Quentin, I'm sure, was a disappointing Carver to many viewers since he had seemed like such a likely candidate. The Kit twist was a way of giving it a little oomph, but the ending was too "Silence of the Lambs." In fact, there were a number of horror-movie references in the show, like the way Julia's dream echoed "Rosemary's Baby." Too bad "Nip/Tuck" didn't measure up. There was so … much … talking! We kept being dragged through explication that felt far too often like a way of padding the story out to two hours. And in a show that is carefree about defying plausibility, Quentin's faked death was even more so.

Still, I was pleased that I had pointed out to people yesterday that identifying the Carver is not the same as getting rid of the Carver. How's this for a future plot? Quentin and Kit meet Ava in Europe…

As for Matt's storyline, I've already said how displeased I was that little-Nazi girlfriend went crazy, cutting short a storyline that had potential, so adding an insane dad on top of it was just sour icing on a fallen cake.

Plenty of cliffhangers though, and possibilities of further dramatic excess.

I'm adding this last bit a little later than the rest. It's something I meant to add but didn't. Which is, that one thing I do like about "Nip/Tuck" is that it likes to swing for the fences. It wants to have those scenes that cause people's jaws to drop, that keep people talking the next day. As I have said before, I think it does rather often fail to carry through on what it sets up. And there are times when its big swing turns out to be a big whiff. But I want shows to be unafraid, to not worry about "going too far," to think that there's new ground out there, that audiences can still be dazzled by story and style and acting. If nothing else (and many times, there really is nothing else), "Nip/Tuck" has that kind of ambition.

I know the Carver is supposed to be revealed tomorrow night and, since I haven't seen the season finale, I'm mildly interested in finding out who it is. (My upset special: Liz.) I've been watching the show closely for the last few weeks, but feeling bad about doing so.

"Nip/Tuck" is capable of great shocks, and nervy scenes. Last week's Christmas episode showed that when it had the African-American nativity figure being dragged by a car. How many buttons was that pushing? But it's also a show that gets weak-kneed at crucial moments, or that ADD-like drops a topic and moves on without a glance back. In last week's telecast, it abruptly dismantled the story of Matt's white-supremacist girlfriend by just deciding to have her go completely bonkers. She was much more frightening, and interesting, when she was bringing Matt ever closer to her way of thinking. The sudden fit of madness just cut the story short.

Think, too, of Christian's recent relationship with the self-described masochist. She's there, he's involved with her, she's gone. Huh? And then there was the biggest cop-out of the season, the death/not-death of Julia's mother. I watched that unfold, thinking that they couldn't kill her off because she has been such a good character (not to mention that you get to watch Vanessa Redgrave work, and opposite her real-life daughter, no less). And, of course, they couldn't.

Oh, I still watch, more than I like to admit. And the next day or so at work, I'm going over plot twists with a "Nip/Tuck"-watching co-worker. But the show is so full of misery and its characters' self-loathing that it often leaves a bitter feeling behind, usually without any redeeming uplift. In the Christmas episode, I found myself snarling at the screen as Sean again and again did his hesitation-instead-of-action bit; when he sat in the clinic, I was almost screaming, "Oh, be a man!"

And then he acted. And I should have felt great about it. Instead, I was thinking that it took him long enough to get off his duff. And "Nip/Tuck" is too often like Sean — on the verge of something great, then pulling back. I even suspect something along those lines about the Carver. As I said to a reader earlier today, revealing the Carver's identity is not the same as getting rid of the character.

(Below is what I wrote on Monday after seeing a preview tape of Brittany Snow's "Nip/Tuck" episode. TV Tattle on Tuesday posted a link to an interview with Snow that you can find here.)

I don't know how many people have watched both "American Dreams" and "Nip/Tuck" but they're in for a shock tomorrow night.

Brittany Snow, who with great charm played the smart and decent Meg Pryor on "Dreams," is bringing all that "Dreams" good will to the screen, then turning it upside down on "Nip/Tuck."

It's not just the overdone eye makeup — major sign of a TV bad girl, it's the character she's playing: a white supremacist who gets her clutches into Matt.

This isn't the only story in the "Nip/Tuck" episode — much of which involves the final wedding plans by Christian and Kember — but it sets a lot of things in motion, and Snow is going to be around for awhile. Nor is her character alone in her beliefs; her parents are also unabashedly racist, and her dad has plans for Matt, which look as if they will go very badly.

In fact, this episode looks like yet another demonstration of what a dolt Matt is. A hot girl makes eyes at him, and the next thing you know he's wearing an earring with a swastika. And when his fathers don't like his new girl just because she's an outspoken racist, well, you can bet Matt's going to find a way to fight back. A really stupid way.

But I didn't start this post as a rant about "Nip/Tuck," even though it's a show that makes me want to rant a lot — while also dragging me into its stories. Rather, I was thinking about what a curious amalgam of career agendas the Snow storyline is.

The show gets to play with the audience's expectations by casting a famous nice girl as a famously horrible one. The actress gets to show she has a scary side, which could lead to a wider range of roles, and therefore more roles, period. After all, Snow's not drawing that "American Dreams" paycheck anymore.

But is she good at being bad? Very much so.