Synopsis:  Marilyn Manson, platinum-selling musician, actor/director, painter, and general cultural icon/pariah/scapegoat/boat-rocker starts a cosmetic surgery practice called The Beautiful People and evites various celebrities to come get a face-lift, breast implants, lip-injections, whatever they want. Sounds innocent enough, but with Manson’s mind being as twisted as it is there are bound to be some very “interesting” results, like when Katie Holmes leaves with only ONE of her breasts augmented, and we’re talking basketball-big. Whoops! The practice itself is real (no Hollywood sets), as are the surgeries; at the beginning of each episode a disclaimer appears in white, official-looking Helvetica Neue against a black screen and is read by someone with a very serious-sounding voice, maybe one of the Baldwin brothers: “While some of the dialog of this show has been scripted, the surgeries themselves are 100% real.” The disclaimer is the sort of thing that people will be saying along with the serious-sounding voice and it may even become part of the general cultural consciousness, with people changing it around to fit various contexts. For example if you go to a bar with a bunch of friends you might be like, “Hold on you guys, hold on,” like you need to make an announcement before everyone dives into their beers, and the announcement goes, all mock-serious-like: “While some of the dialog of this night has been scripted, the beers themselves are 100% real.” Type thing. Anyway, after the disclaimer comes the blistering and catchy-as-Hell theme song, a truncated/clipped version of Manson’s classic 1998 single “I Don’t Like the Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me).” The song refers, of course, to the drugs employed during the surgical process (some of which Manson often takes himself before going in with the scalpel, saying maybe, “I didn’t want to do that, but I had to.” After a wait-for-it beat or two he’ll add something like, “It’s in my contract,” which talk of contracts and the inner workings of a reality show itself is very high-brow, and it gets a laugh from test audiences every time. Manson has a very charming, albeit sardonic, demeanor, and the show’s viewers finds themselves immediately taken with him.) There’s a second reference in the theme song, however, a more obscure one which Manson explains in the pilot episode. The “Drugs” in the context of Dr. Manson, he says, represent celebrities in general, and also American culture as a whole, both of which Manson states that he despises, for the most part, though it is quite ironic that American culture, and indeed many celebrities, are conversely fascinated with him. Thusly we get a perfect embodiment of the show’s ethos, as well as some insight into the havoc Manson wreaks on these celebs’ physical persons. Each star is made to sign a waiver stating that they know exactly what they’re getting themselves into, and that they can’t sue Manson or Fox for giving them an extra nose right above their asshole (which very trick Manson gleefully performs in episode two on Leonardo DiCaprio, who pretends to be stoked about it, stating over and over, all drugged-up and post-surgical, what a “huge fan” he is, but it’s clear he’s actually pretty pissed). While the theme song plays we see a montage of some of the show’s funniest visual gags, like when Manson performs open-heart on Howard Stern without his (Manson’s) scrub-pants or underwear on, or when Katherine Heigl insists on being completely nude during her surgery—refusing also any sort of blanket, any coverage whatsoever—and instead of Manson’s original plan (which we learn when this episode, episode seven, airs) of “just a simple little titty job, maybe some ass work,” he performs cunnilingus on her until she achieves orgasm, despite being completely unconscious. All nudity is, of course, blurred out, but this is just all the more incentive for people to purchase the multi-disc Season One DVD, which will have “Uncut and Unrated!” printed big on the cover, like a subtitle. After the theme song, the first of the patients arrive at The Beautiful People via a private limo. Sometimes clips of the limo ride are shown, where the driver asks his trademark question, “Are you nervous?” to which almost everyone answers they’re more nervous about meeting Marilyn than going under the knife, being such huge fans of his, though not one of them ever notices that the driver is actually former Manson keyboardist Madonna Wayne Gacy. Each patient is made to sit in the waiting room whose magazine racks are full of hilariously ironic issues of Human Events or Christianity Today, and the greater the celeb’s interest in the magazines, the longer their wait. This of course provides endless laughs. Finally, the patient is given a surgical robe and brought into Manson’s OR by Nurse Houston (yes, the porn star) where Manson says something like “Well, what can we do for you today?” Sometimes a patient (they skew about 83% female) will request specific treatment (usually breast implants) though often she (or he) will leave it up to Manson. Big mistake, for this is when things start to get freaky—and bloody; the star is put under and Manson starts cutting, tucking, stitching, and re-arranging with reckless abandon, all the while providing hilarious non-sequiturs, farting, and pulling up on the patient’s elastic waistband and peeking in. This is done with both male and female patients, almost regularly, and is referred to as the “bush check” or the “manhood test.” After their surgery a patient is given a bit of time to come off the drugs, but not much, before being interviewed. Despite the hideous transformations they’ve just undergone, they usually seem oddly pleased, saying things like “I love it. I’ve never looked this good since I was eighteen” or “This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” After commercial break we see the limo again, which brings the second patient. Each episode will feature two surgeries, allowing a half-hour for each, minus commercials, which is ample time for tons of laughs, guts, and thinly veiled sexual innuendo. The show’s true genius is that you really can’t afford to miss an episode; who wants to see Abigail Breslin on Access Hollywood with hands for feet and feet for hands, collapsing left and right, unable to walk or hold a microphone, and not know exactly how she got to that point? No one does.

Pilot Episode (two hours):  In the pilot’s first half-hour we get some insight (though fabricated) into the creation of The Beautiful People. Manson draws up a business plan, visits a bunch of strip clubs and various S&M shops to get some ideas for the place’s decor, goes on Wikipedia and scans some articles about surgery in the Middle Ages. We see the creation of his practice in super-fast-motion, from abandoned warehouse to dark, sexy medical facility. Manson sits in his newly completed office behind a dark mahogany desk with blood-red maroon velvet top and jives for a while, talking about some of what he hopes to achieve with Dr. Manson, calling it “basically the same thing as a Marilyn Manson show, only for once I won’t be the one getting cut open.” Patients comprise Smashing Pumpkins bassist D’arcy, who comes away with a complete (meaning absolute full-body) skin graft from an African American—while she’s under, Manson explains, “I’m hoping to give her some rhythm here”; Christina Ricci, whose face Manson reinstalls on the small of her back, like a coed’s tribal tattoo; and Sarah DiMuro, who gets an actual penis put first in, and then on her.