Save Skins from the idiocy of its writers
The latest series of Channel 4’s Skins has left me pretty disappointed. Instead of the usual jolly japes of sixth-formers pursuing sexual experimentation and filling their bodies so full of drugs that Pete Doherty would probably balk, Skins seems to have gone all limp on us.
The first series was a breath of fresh air, the first television programme to target young people with entertaining stories about themselves, living (by and large) in the way that young people do. I of course never attended wild parties or drank alcohol, or even saw drugs. I went to a Catholic school in the Home Counties, and furthermore my Mum reads this column. The first two series were fun, action-packed and memorable, but above all, it was achingly middle class. All the characters were staying on for A-levels, with a view to going on to good universities, (one even got into York), and the only character who might have upset this happy suburban scene, helpfully died at the end of the second series.
The third series has been anything other than fun. The joy seems to have been sucked out of the show, and replaced with dull, feckless idiots, with stupid names. Take ‘Effy’ for example; that’s not a name, it’s a collection of letters that sounds suspiciously like a slang term for a personal sexual act. Then there is James Cook, and Naomi Campbell…hang on a second; they are good names, because they are other people’s names. We finally hit rock bottom with laziest of all: JJ.
Despite having names that seem to have been nicked from newspapers and history books, the characters fail to redeem themselves with any sort of likeability. Far from being a dashing sea captain, (James) Cook is a chavtastic thug, who has so much sex that it is neither believable nor even worth watching. I actually want to see him end up with a painful dose of the clap from too much ‘Willy Waggling’. Other characters include a ‘will they, won’t they’ lesbian couple, who finally get together in a bizarre bucolic romp. If you haven’t seen it, think half Famous Five half Cruel Intentions.
It seems, then, that the characters are so bored of the storylines that they want to snort half a pharmacy each time they have the opportunity, in the hope that it will lead to some excitement to detract from the stodgy script.
The way to remedy this is simple: make Skins more believable. Firstly, I want to see characters with real names, rather than pilfered ones. I also want to see the characters waking up with hangovers, and for those who fill themselves full of narcotics, I want overdoses. Only then will we rescue what was once an excellent programme.
Loading ...
But wasn’t Skins always a hedonistic tv show meant to fill our hearts with a dream of life that could be?
I loved the first two series of Skins, and recently bought them on DVD. Although there were always a lot of hedonistic antics, it was accompanied with a real heart and soul that made me feel deep affection for the characters. Thus I had high hopes for the new series, and have so far been disappointed (I’ve been watching it on catch-up and so am a few weeks behind broadcast). It’s not terrible, but it’s also nowhere near as good as it used to be – I hope it improves fast.