So last Thursday saw the return of Skins, you know, the programme that shows you what teenage life is really like.. For those of you who were living out your own youth instead of watching what some 35 year old in TV land thinks your youth is like then here is a little a quick catch up of the new Skins gang.
‘Cook is a fucking geezer’ garbled some spotty kid on a fanpage. No he is not, he is pretty much everyone you hated at school rolled into one. Somehow making him ‘charismatic’ according to the E4 website. A fucking cock, more like.
He is perhaps the most dislikable TV character ever, who nevertheless has friends who in real life would never, ever hang out with him. So we have Freddie the HOT one, (who incidentally is about 5 years too old for that skateboard that nearly caused a car crash in the first three minutes. No doubt he’ll have all the girls and some of the boys swooning after him, but my first reaction was ‘prick!’) Then there is Pandora the IRRITATING VIRGIN one (wonder who’ll open up her box? Geddit?!), Naomi, the MIGHT-BE-A-LESBIAN one, (incidentally the only character who is remotely likeable/interesting), JJ, the ZANY POSH MAGICIAN ONE, (no really) Effy the MANIPULATIVE PROMISCUOUS one. The characters are all so 2-D it’s like watching a cartoon: one poor girl even has an actual EVIL TWIN for fucks sake.
As anyone who saw the last two series will know, Skins always tries to be hip and zeitgeisty, and like, real, man, yeah? So expect story lines from Broken Britain about drugs, knife crime, immigrants, ASBOs etc, with healthy lashings of barely legal tits and arse to keep up, amongst other things, your interest. In that way, it is a bit like the Daily Mail on TV minus the prejudice. Depressingly, it will probably be huge.
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4 comments:
Didn't you used to absolutely love skins at school?
Yer I did.
But premiere of S3? utter hogwash IMHO.
Skins series one had some great moments of brilliance throughout it, but it would be hard to judge that on the first episode which essentially focuses on convincing 16-18 year olds how COOL the show is.
But then, we had the fantastic Cassie episode which was sensitively written, not to mention beautifully shot. The acting from that point and the reality of the characterisations despite increasinly surreal surroundings held the show up. It was an exploration of new territory, it was an experiment in dramatic form.
The second series was a bizarre series of darkening explorations of our characters. Cassie was brutally raped as a character, transforming from quirkily loveable to sinister and manipulative, tragically demented. There was a bizarre period where Maxxie was a major character (COS GOSH HES SO HAWWT) but then he became obscure one more. Then death, depression, loneliness, bitterness. Very unsubtly covering the difficulty of transitioning from a happy, carefree world (season one) to the brink of adulthood (season two) and the inevitable loss of friendships, love, and life.
Series three's creative goal is of course, to recapture that same sixth form experience in the first. The show hereby is saying it's not about the characters, it's about the issues. Counter-intuitively the third season premiere decides to focus on being SO COOl, part of the cynical attempt to draw in that new generation of kids who may not have connected with it before.
Truly, the characters are dreadfully caricatured this time. I like Naomi too. Strange device, having none of them really being friends to start with. Effie is just the tits, the clear protagonist this year seems to be Freddie - beautiful mullato Maxxie clone - who you could note, is in the season two teasers as an extra.
As with the very first episode of Skins, my opinion is divided but to a different extent. I will see the next episode and decide whether the show is about the themes or about the gratuity. It sure did seem to be almost a celebration of teenage antisocial behaviour with no support of its existence. Why are the kids like this? Of course, this should come later. We can hope. Less so than last year however, do we empathise: Freddy, the cynical attempt at a supertsar lead (Tony status, Sid's sensitivity, Maxxie's looks) was the only character to show other than Naomi to look poised to develop in any real way.
And on a side note, the bit with Sid's locker seemed like a very bizarre backwards reference, and the wanton pyromania and fart jokes were just wrong.
Good point.
I think it's past its best, really.
Fart jokes just make me cringe really.
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