Skins Party

When I saw the initial trails for the first series of Skins (Mon, 10pm, E4; Thu, 10.35pm, C4) last year, I harrumphed like a 400-year-old man. It looked like Hollyoaks getting off with Trainspotting on the set of Christina Aguilera’s Dirrty video. The advert showed Tony, one of the main characters, romping in a shower with two girls at the same time, which looked about as far away from my teenage years as it was possible to get. And when episode one rolled by, my harrumphing appeared justified. The minute I saw Tony in action, I thought “oh, so he’s the hero, is he? Supposed to think he’s cool, am I? Well I don’t. I think he’s an arsehole. Ha! Take THAT, Skins.”

But the series had wrong-footed me. It thought Tony was an arsehole too, and spent episode after episode showing his friends slowly coming to the same conclusion. He was shallow and cruel, and the final episode ended with him getting hit by a bus. If I was a teenager, that’s precisely what I’d want to see.

In-between now and then, Tony’s been in a coma, emerging just in time for the start of the second series. The cocksure grin has been replaced by a hundred-yard stare. His brain’s taken such a kick to the nuts, other people have to cut his food up for him. He can’t write his own name or unbutton his flies. And the memories of most of his sexual conquests have been wiped, unlike his backside, which he has to clean using an automated spout on a special toilet.

In short, Tony’s eating humble pie by the fistload. So having spent series one setting him up as a hideous bell-end, the programme now invites you to pity him. It’s a great start. A confident one, too: in fact, the show oozes confidence from the off, opening with a wordless dance routine in a church, just to confuse you.

And as it goes on, it becomes clear Skins isn’t a youth show at all, but a proper drama, far closer to Jimmy McGovern’s The Street than Hollyoaks.

Instead of attempting to pander to an imaginary audience of whooping teenage cretins, it merely seeks to entertain regular people. Yes, regular people. Remember them? They used to watch television in their millions, back in the days before it got obsessed with targeting niche groups.

In an age when the bulk of contemporary television is drearily defined by who it’s aimed at, anyone of any age could tune in to Skins and draw something from it. Which makes it weird. And somewhat wonderful.

SOURCE

Thanks to Anon