Feel-good television has never been as nauseating as Dr. Pimple Popper, a one-hour special that aired last night on TLC. The show followed Dr. Sandra Lee, a California-based dermatologist who has made (another) name for herself via a series of online videos that feature her extracting various pusses and fluids from her patients’ bodies. In Dr. Pimple Popper’s office, per the TLC special, she displays a plaque congratulating her for 1 million YouTube subscribers; she now has over three times that amount.
Dr. Pimple Popper was something like E!’s Botched meets David Cronenberg meets aaaah…release. Lee met with four patients who were waiting to expel: Angelina, who had a softball-sized lump under her left breast for six years; Delano, who was carrying almost a liter of fluid on his upper back in a series of two humps; Carla, a woman prone to quoting DJ Tanner (“Oh, Mylanta!”) who had five pilar cysts on the back of her head that she referred to as “my aliens” (the oldest dated back 35 years); and Brenda, whose lipoma just above her left eye gave her anxiety attacks. Dr. Lee fixed them all up real nice in gory detail, her minor surgeries sometimes set to jaunty, almost mockingly lighthearted music. The overall effect of the show was so woozy it made me feel lightheaded a few times.