Skins by shoutingatco.ws

Apart from the foodstuff and Don McLean song, American Pie was a late 90s film that combined charming attempts at young love with (and it was novel at the time) gross-out comedy.  For every guy-accidentally-gluing-his-cock-to-his-hand moment was a witty and well observed look at Teenagers.  By the time American Pie 3 came around (and unbelievably, like a 70s horror franchise, they’ve made 6 of the things now), the witty subtlety that made the series so sweet had altogether disappeared and been replaced by tits! Wanking! More tits! Someone catching their son wanking! Pubic hair! Sex with an old lady!  Keeping the over-the-top bits without retaining the glue that held it together rendered it an irritating collection of set pieces.

Skins (E4) has followed this pattern.  The first two series followed a group of well rounded (if initially dislikable) characters as they try to make it through the day.  While there were moments that would send the collective Daily Mail reading populace to their writing desks, these were, on the whole, balanced out by the emotional interplay between the characters.  Since only pornography can continue to pretend that people are teenagers well past the point of believability, the Skins cast are now too old and have been shipped out in favour of a team of half-wit replacements.  Think Saved By The Bell: The New Class, but on weed.

The characters are two dimensional idiots, rushing at 1000mph between ludicrous scenarios; pretending to have been hit by a car while covering yourself in tomato sauce; listening as a teacher farts (they smell and come out of your bum, brilliant!) through a megaphone; watching your teenage sister through the bathroom lock and telling her about her personal shaving habits.  This is all punctuated with drug use, swearing and drinking so self-consciously casual that the characters might as well have thirty foot flashing signs behind them with “Cool” and a giant downward arrow just to show how bloody great they are.

Adults are similarly ill-thought out.  Harry Enfield swears.  A lot.  Ardal O’Hanlon, a great comic actor, doesn’t care about anything.  This teacher is very, very nervous.  This teacher farts.  This one has no control.  They’re not even characters in themselves, in that they’re not people, just hooks to drop supposedly funny moments on.

Overall, Skins is a shitstorm of morons doing unpleasant things because of the writers misplaced assumption that just saying “porn” or “shaved fanny” is inherently funny.  It isn’t.

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