It's official: "Nip/Tuck" has gone from one of TV's best series at its peak to one of the most horridly unpleasant.

The most recent episode, featuring a delightful mix of prison rape and pedophilia, moved closer to "unwatchable" than I would have thought possible, given how much I enjoyed the series in the early part of its run.

The FX drama has never really recovered from its inane resolution to "The Carver" serial slasher storyline, but the program rebounded somewhat in its last flight of episodes. During the current run, however, it's only reason for being seems to be trying to one-up itself in terms of sheer repulsiveness, or testing how ridiculous the plots can become.

I mean, a mime bandit? Seriously? We might have to amend that popular slogan to "Jump the Mime."

At this point, the only reason I'm still watching is because having come this far, it would be nice to complete the journey and see where the show wraps up. But it's hard to remember a series where the wheels came off so completely. Even "Heroes" hasn't fallen this far, this fast creatively.

Maybe it's time those responsible took a look in the mirror and asked, "Tell me what you still like about your show." Personally, I'd be hard-pressed to come up with an answer.

For those charting the current path of big-brain television, Wednesday was a pretty damn impressive night. First (at least if you're on an East Coast feed), FX's "Damages" took a quantum leap forward with an extremely strong episode that finally began to firmly pull its disparate plot threads together. Then "Lost" did much the same, after a few moments where the ABC show's time-travel plot appeared that it could easily careen into a black hole, or wormhole, or whatever.

"Damages" has benefited enormously from its cast additions this season, as well as the return of Ted Danson's character, Arthur Frobisher, in this latest episode. The beefed-up cast -- including Marcia Gay Harden as a rival attorney to Glenn Close's pivotal plaintiff's lawyer Patty Hewes -- has helped obscure some of the deficiencies apparent in the Emmy-nominated first season.

As for "Lost" (and see my colleague Cynthia Littleton's blog for a more thorough analysis), the only bummer is that this latest installment took a ratings hit opposite a two-hour "American Idol." While DVR viewing should make up some of that loss, the show risks losing viewers as its twisty plot becomes more "Wait, who the hell is that again, and how did he get there?" demanding.

Still, as I stated in my earlier review, there are only 30-some-odd hours of "Lost" left, and the show has thus far given its core fans reason to savor them.