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Last night was the premiere of MTV’s American update of the popular and controversial British telly show, Skins. Now, before we go any further let me tell you that I have never watched the original Skins, although I have a friend named Jed who swears by it, and at some point tried to argue that it was better than Friday Night Lights, so you can start to see just how powerful our friendship is because somehow we have made it through that nightmare. I have no opinion about the original Skins whatsoever, although apparently last night’s episode was basically a word-for-word remake of the original premiere episode, just with all the references to “lorries” and “birds” switched out to “drugs” and “drugs.” (Seriously, how many times did someone on last night’s episode say the word “drugs”? 1,00000000000 times?)
I do, however, have an opinion of the MTV version of Skins, and that opinion is that this show is awful.
It opens with a disgusting little boy taking a break from ogling the middle-aged woman next door to run cover for his Gossip Girl reject sister who is stumbling home with torn clothing and a face smeared in eye makeup, you know, classic Tuesday morning teenager stuff. Then he goes into the bathroom and locks the door and his dad is out in the hallway pounding on the door screaming “I WANT TO TAKE A DUMP!” Who can’t remember the awkwardness of being a teenager whose dad screamed “I WANT TO TAKE A DUMP!” so many times first thing in the morning. Then the disgusting kid–he really is so gross, and I know that’s kind of the point of his character, but yuck–starts making a bunch of phone calls on his way to school because it is his mission to get his friend laid before his 17th birthday. The rest of the episode is filled with their madcap adventures in drug dealing, underage drinking, louche winking, fist-fighting, peeing, and driving SUVs into the river. What a magical night!
The only real problems with the show are that the acting is bad, the shock-value is boring, and not a single moment seems even remotely true to actual life. Admittedly, it is hard for me as a 54-year-old man to know what is true to life to today’s teenagers, but somehow I feel like very few of them wander into a suburban subdivision looking to buy drugs and end up at a high-end whorehouse filled with impossibly beautiful whores. I even find it hard to believe any of them actually MAKE CALLS on their phones. Don’t teenagers communicate exclusively in SEXTs now? I’m sure they still go to parties and do drugs, as they always have, but the part at the end of the episode when the one girl is peeing in the bushes (if you’d like to know more about her character, she loves snacks. Interesting!) and another one accidentally elbows the SUV into gear and it rolls down the hill into the water is just some Benny Hill shit. Oh sure, teenagers are constantly wrecking vehicles, but come on. At the very least, let one and/or all of them DIE. The slimy asshole bobs up to the surface and looks around and says “Well, that could have gone worse.” LOLOLOL! Teens are so carefree!
It is that casual and assumed disregard for the basic concept of consequences that is the show’s real error. The thing that is interesting about teenagers (just kidding, there is nothing interesting about teenagers, but stay with me for a moment) is the way in which their lives are balanced precariously between their arrogant, delusional belief in their own immortality and their desperate fear of EVERYTHING. (Have you ever noticed how all teenagers believe that they are invincible but also that they’re going to die before the age of 25?) They’re total assholes most of the time, but they are also tiny little babies. Obviously, the show is going to have teenagers freaking out in future episodes. Someone will certainly get pregnant or something. Actually, that’s probably not “shocking” enough. Someone will get an abortion performed through their butt DURING AP calculus. Better. But the real life of the teenager is not either/or, it’s constant, like alternating current. So I call shenanigans on a gang of kids on their way to the hospital to save someone from a drug overdose plunging a $60,000 car full of drugs into the river and coming up all giggles.
The most obvious precedent for Skins is not Gossip Girl, which is a high camp soap opera, but My So Called Life, which launched the careers of A.J. Langer and Devon Gummersall. I don’t have an nostalgia for that show personally, but many people do. I’m confident that if you went back and rewatched it you would learn that it was neither as good nor as realistic as you might have thought. But here is the one way in which the old, John Hughes style teenage wasteland seems preferable to the new: it didn’t act so impressed with itself for knowing that kids like to fuck and take drugs. THAT SHIT HAS BEEN GOING ON SINCE THE INVENTION OF KIDS. In order to make an emotional connection with a TV show you have to have something more. Teenagers have volatile, if not deep, emotional lives, that is, like, their whole thing. The fucking and fighting and smoking is just an outcropping of that. And a boring outcropping, too.
I guess in the end Skins just made me feel old. But not in a bad way. I’m really glad that I’m no longer in an age group that MTV tries to appeal to. I forgot how annoying they are about it! Teenagers of America, I urge you, don’t watch Skins. Watch Bob’s Burgers instead. It’s great! Or READ A BOOK. Whatever you do, leave me out of it.
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Speaking of new shows, did you guys watch The Cape? It’s exactly as terrible as it looks. Sorry Summer Glau.
Summer Glau for the defense:
Sustained!
I tried to give it another chance last night, and it didn’t deserve one. I’ll probably still watch it for Summer though.
I offer the following in the way of rebuttal:
http://videogum.com/205721/in-defense-of-the-yogi-bear-movie/movies/
So wait, MTV produced a bad show? Wow. I’m, like, really shocked. #Literally. Rare misstep, MTV.
True Life: I Have Sarcasm
Even if skins didn’t translate well, you have to admit that the US version of Monty Python’s Flying Circus is pretty great.
Someone please gif a giant foot squishing them and I’ll by you a soda.
FLW owes Concert Addict one soda.
If only this were all one big farce.
Monty Python animated gifs? Monty Python animated gifs.
Its…
How am I doin’? Am I doin’ good? I’m not doin’ so good…
You did just fine.
Perfect analogy. I don’t ‘get’ either of them, but people keep telling me to try again.
MTV now features blaring unpleasant music, loudmouth New Jersey types and now a bunch of self-centered teenagers that think the world revolves around them. Throw in a homeless guy taking up three seats and an acrid scent of body odor and MTV will officially be a accurate recreation of my commute to work each morning.
But, weirdly enough, it has the most realistic [if exploitative and made-for-TV] accounts of teenage pregnancy on TV and recently discussed abortion as a viable option, which is more than every single teen drama ever can say.
outside of Degrassi Jr High
can’t wait for the new ads
@Flapjack_dopee says :”I never seen #skins but I hear it’s #degrassi on crack!”
@JanssonRebecka raves:
”
“I’m hoping #Skins US will get more like the UK one, but I do like the lesbian character
these are literally the best reviews I can find on twitter
Nah, I’m just going to wait two years for VH1′s comedic retrospective on MTV’s Skins.
You mean loser comedians in front of green screens talking about the first episode of skins that will inevitably happen next week?
“Skins is so great!” – hipster teenagers
As a hipster teenager, allow me to express my displeasure at SUCH BLATANT STEREOTYPING.
I real hipster teen would never identify themselves as such….IMPOSTER!
For realzies, I am WAY too cool and busy listening to The Velvet Underground on vinyl and dancing to Sleigh Bells in my room to watch a lamestream MTV show duh.
Sleigh Bells you say? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOeKgUrk8PY
and this of course. I generally like these guys though. I have gotten kicked by break-dancers three times in the past month.
Wow, meant to be a FLW reply, but takes on a nice strangeness of its own.
Skins was the British-version of Kids and it appears MTV gummoed up the script, not to mention the tone.
You just made a friend. Mr.Winwood, your 11:00 is here.
#1 reason why UK Skins is great:
Bow t-shirts?
Sick dance moves?
I want that t-shirt. WANT.
Love love LOVE Cassie, but I gotta disagree with you -
CHRIS, I MISS YOU.
CHRIS 4EVS. Him & Cassie are my favorite characters, and the US version seems already to have ruined both of them.
on behalf of ‘merica, I apologize.
I miss Cassie so much it hurts sometimes.
Please make a Skins movie. Or have Sid and Cassie wander through the US version at the point that the Baltimore teens make a zany trip to the NYC.
#3 reason why UK Skins is great:
A 9/11 Musical that featured a talking bagel.
Though unbelievable in a teen’s closet, Cassie’s wardrobe alone was a reason.
I used to be with it, but then they changed what “it” was. Now, what I’m with isn’t it, and what’s “it” seems weird and scary to me.
That’s all well and good for you, but I used to rock and roll all night and party every day. Then it was every other day… now I’m lucky to find half an hour a week in which to get funky
anyone remember undressed? cause that show was great in that it didn’t take itself too seriously.
Yes!
#confusedandformerlyrepressedteenagedfeelingsrisingtothesurface
i watched that show every night, thinking that was what college was going to be like.
college was not like that.
omg undressed was SO ridiculous and we were duped: college is SO not like that. never once did i get to have any sex involving sock puppets.
yes. kinda good!
I have been saying that Skins looks like My So-Called Life meets Undressed. Can someone finally confirm this for me?!
I’m a huge My So-Called Life apologist so I refuse to accept this comparison. Shit, I also really loved Undressed as a repressed teenager….Ok, let’s see. I like most teenage dramas and I feel less gross about their sex scenes because the actors are all in their 20s. Skins was basically like watching my teenaged brothers make out…
Ok. Skins is like That’s So Raven meets Jen Lindley (the early years) on Dawson’s Creek but with more lolz. That’s pretty much the best I can come up with.
The original is horrible too.
Yes this!
Watching a bunch of boring assholes go in a cycle of drugs/rave/sex/mental breakdown doesn’t make good TV.
I’m probably just bitter since my teenage years are more like The Inbetweeners.
The Inbetweeners!!!!
(I have nothing more to contribute to the conversation)
The Inbetweeners is so much better than any version of Skins. And I’m there with you. It captures the awkwardness of my High School experience perfectly.
I thought it was terrible at first! Then I couldn’t stop watching. Then in season four when one of the characters turns out to be bipolar and suicidal, I had to stop watching again because it was TOO CLOSE TO HOME.
The original had so many good guest stars, though. Peter Capaldi! He’s so great!! HERE IS A SPOILER: The episode in which Sid’s dad dies could be compared to FNL’s “The Son,” but it’d come up lacking, I think.
British TV seems to have this idea that all their teenagers just drink oceans of booze and take tons of drugs and have so much sex, like, every single teenager on the entire damn island, and it does wear on the viewer after a while. Relax, British schoolchildren. Eat regular meals and study for your GCSEs and your IB and your what have you. Be in bed, sober, by midnight on a Tuesday. You can still be the coolest best without coming to school on six different pills, wearing see-through dresses.
Yes to all of this. Except for me, the series four plot was more WTFBALLS? than TOO CLOSE TO HOME.
I only recently found out that the first series was based on the creator’s friends, in which the Jamie Brittain is Sid and the Bryan Elsley (the co-creator/producer) is Sid’s dad. Which makes all of it slightly more fascinating, particularly the part that you mention: essentially he’s killing his father and mourns him by going to an intensely loud Crystal Castles show. Strangely powerful!
But maybe it’s because they’re British and this episode will be rubbish when turned into Baltimore instead of Bristol (Oh, now I see what they did there.)
Agreed: everything that happened with Effie and the psychiatrist was unbearably nuts, and POOR FREDDIE.
Way too nuts!! I was a huge apologist for the tone of the show until season 4 and I felt like taking back all the arguments I made defending it.
I thought the first two seasons were good. Then it was just close up shots of people taking drugs, being edgy and masturbating.
THANK YOU. I thought i was going to be the only one. My friend and I watched maybe two episodes, found it ridiculous and moved on.
but the question is: am i the only one who doesn’t like My So-called Life? I do not understand why it’s such a classic. Claire Danes is just obnoxious.
She’ IS obnoxious! But she’s still such a sympathetic character. A lot of people identify with her because when you’re a teenager you are really introspective [read: self-absorbed] and neurotic and anxious about dumb things and cynical, etc. Maybe that’s just me.
“People always say how you should be yourself. Like yourself is this definite thing, like a toaster or something. Like you know what it is, even. But every so often, I’ll have, like, a moment when just being myself, and my life, like, right where I am, is, like, enough.”
self-indulgent teenagers whose problems were romanticized,basically a whole “ugh,our life just suxx” forcibly made to be entertaining
I watched this show thinking it was going to be a retrospective on this guy:
Somehow it’s even grosser.
But what about opening it with an Animal Collective song? DIDN’T EVERYONE LIKE THAT?
But the UK version started with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_UbBp2BP28
CAN’T BE BEAT
Out of curiosity, what AC song was it? I’m guessing Doggy. It was Doggy right? Not someone jumping on the MPP bandwagon?
Oh boo! “My Girls?” You mean the song about wanting to make enough money as a hardworking musician to help support a family you deeply care about? That screams hungover teenager and BOOBS.
joke’s on Avey….he got DIVORCE’D
A) Mean
B) Panda Bear sings lead on that song and wrote it. Avey sings in canon 2 beats behind him.
Downvotes woo!
UK Skins first generation is great! Seriously!
I loved the UK one but that is because I am a teen girl and not a grown up.
I’m an adult male and I love the UK one. I turned the MTV one off before it was half over. The tone was off and the acting was horrid.
Sorry, MTV but I’ll keep my decade long protest of the canceling of Clone High, thankyouverymuch.
An infinitely better look at the trials and tribulations facing America’s teens/clones-of-famous-dead-guys-and-ladies.
That was supposed to be a gif.
That was supposed to be Gandhi.
AGREED
LOLOL the joke is Direct Current is Constant, not Alternating Current
So they turned the gay guy into a girl?
THAT’S PROGRESS!
INCORRECT!
They said “drugs” about 4 times. “Narcotics” about 72 times.
Has anyone read the bios on the MTV site? – http://www.mtv.com/shows/skins/cast_characters.jhtml
Sounds like every character is Poochie.
“I liked the original better.”
(opens envelope)
“What was Napoleon’s response to his second exile?”
????????
No love for the Johnny Carson bit?
May a plague of homeless yaks infest your sister’s undergarments.
I don’t have a sister, so JOKE’S ON YOU, BUDDY!!*
*There are already yaks living in my underwear.
As someone who lost his faith in teenagers via chatroulette this weekend, i’d like to say that it’s entirely possible that teenagers are exactly like this show.
Chatroulette is still a thing?
You’d be surprised how many 14-17 year olds i told to get off and do children things. Then they all called me gay and asked for nudes. This weekend was awful.
I don’t know about anyone else, but my high school life was more like “Daria”. Or, more specifically, if there was ever a cartoon (or human too I guess) that encompassed me in high school (and now), it would be Daria Morgendorffer. And my sister would most definitely be Quinn.
Side note: Just found out that you can buy the entire series of Daria for $50. Hooray!
I am definitely an Angela Chase. Although – hopefully – a little more considerate of other people. Also, drugz.
Maybe I was too young when MSCL was on (cool people shorthand right?), so I didn’t watch it when it was on & when I did watch it I didn’t get it.
Still love Jared Leto though.
Also, Freaks & Geeks > My So Called Life.
I was BORN the year that show came out, so I am most definitely behind the times. I watched it on YouTube freshman year of high school and fell in lurv.
Oh my, you’re a babymonster! (not really, I just feel old- I was 9 when it started)
Bah! You are still a young’n too.
I am about one thousand years older than you guys, so when I was in Jr. high it was around the time that Freaks and Geeks is set. I was very much a Lindsey – the cool kids let me hang out with them and eventually begrudgingly realized that I too was cool, in spite of the fact that I made good grades. And I am pretty sure I owned that same ski jacket that Kim Kelly wears all the time. Kim Kelly FTW
I wanted to be Daria, but really, I was more the black girl whose name I can’t remember who was obsessed with school work and whose parents were similarly obsessed. Except less popular and without the jock boyfriend.
I’m going to have to agree with your friend Jed, Gabe. The original Skins is absolutely wonderful! Seriously, so good. It is very, very ridiculous, but it is also a lot of other things. There’s Cassie! And Tony! And dramatic Cat Stevens singalongs after Tony gets mowed down by a bus! And the Mad Twatter (I’m assuming the Mad Twatter is not in this new MTV one? I could not bear the pain of watching more than three minutes so I GUESS I WILL NEVER KNOW)! But the main difference, you see, is that the UK Skins has a lot of heart, whereas this one is all “DRUGS DRUGS DRUGS I’M A TEENAGER I NEED MORE DRUGS RAWR” and no *heart*. So.
[IMG]http://i55.tinypic.com/1691bbb.jpg[/IMG]
Oh just kidding. Here we go!
I really really want to know if they are going to leave the Wild World scene in the US version. I don’t think they can pull it off.
Yeah, I don’t think that will ever happen. MTV’s core audience would probably be more appreciative of, like, a Wiz Khalifa singalong. Just have the cast walk around Baltimore, belting out a rousing, emotional rendition of “Black and Yellow.”
Yay Bob’s Burgers!
Just watched it for the first time last night. Bob’s Burgers is SO GOOD!
As a professional British person, I can accurately say, after years of research, this is exactly like my life. Except substitute taking drugs and going to crazy, fun, sexy parties with sitting at home on my dial up internet, playing Pokemon too far into my teenage years and shuffling around the edge of kitchens at house parties before helping clean up after the girl I like kisses the footballer (SOCCER-ER?).
Now, I am cool though, so it’s all a-ok guys!
I’ll stick to Shirts, thank you.
…
…
GET IT?!
“Remember to wear you skins” – anybody else’s mother?
I am a HUGE UK Skins fan. Didn’t like this episode, but I am going to give it a chance because to be honest, the pilot of the first UK Skins season wasn’t the best either IMO.
Bryan Elsley, the creator of both UK and US Skins and one of the best writers they have, wrote Tea’s episode (which is the second episode). I trust him as a writer, so I’m giving it another chance. His episodes always have the best balance of ridiculousness and heartfelt…ness. And I think the girl who plays Tea is one of the stronger actors (which isn’t saying much, but whatevs.)
I really recommend giving her ep a chance. If Elsley can’t pull that one off, then maybe jump ship.
Also (I promise I will shut up), Tea’s episode is almost all original material instead of this scene by scene remake of the UK version. So maybe it will be a better indicator of what this version can do.
Blah. I just want it to get better.
Tea is the only person I like more than her UK equivalent (Maxxie bored me so much) so far, so that gives me hope.
Urgh.. Skins is the worst!
I am confident that I DID go back and rewatch My So-Called and learned that it WAS as good as I might have thought.
Not completely realistic, sure. I mean… a folk-song writing homeless angel? What? A boy that leans really well? COME ON.
Oi!
I spend a lot of time on tumblr these days, and thats how it was discovered, i think, and thats where all the buzz originated here in the states. Theres also another UK show called Misfits, thats super popular on tumblr, which they’re already planning a U.S. version of… so chalk this up as an obvious attempt to co-opt an internet culture. the millions of little tween-teenage consumers will prob eat it up. the smarter ones will migrate to the uk version. MTV doesn’t start trends anymore. lucked out with Jersey Shore. they’re establishment-internet-vampires always scouring the internet for what is really resonating with youth, then sucking whatever truth is in it to make it consumer ready. i really wish Jersey Shore didnt exist, MTV was on the verge of death, and that piece of shit show resurrected it.
I saw a post last night about the U.S. version of Misfits and it was blatant trolling???? Like the source on it was just a flash animation.
However MTV is definitely the worst (although I can’t stop making garlic bread and watching I Used to Be Fat, so there’s that.)
I’m not inherently opposed to an American remake of Misfits as long as it points more people to the original. Misfits is weird and amazing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2rEHt7u1iQ
The thing about being an actual teenager, for me at least, was that I would never, ever want to watch a tv show about teenagers. That was fun when I was younger, and even in middle school, but by high school the boring and frustrating reality of being a teenager meant watching an unrealistic portrayal more annoying, plus those shows are usually awful. Even when our lives were interesting, what with the sex and the drugs and all, it’s not like I would’ve watched a show about my friends. By that time I was really into Sex and the City.
I definitely related to My So-Called Life when I watched it during reruns on MTV, so I rewatched it on DVD and I felt that it still seemed somewhat realistic. Sure, the acting and after-school special plot lines were heavy-handed (especially the one in which Rickie, played by Wilson Cruz above, becomes homeless and then Juliana Hatfield appears to him as an angel), but the show had a Freaks and Geeks sensibility in its portrayal of high school students who were outcasts or on the margins or simply invisible (bring on the downvotes!).
Anyways, I refuse to watch American Skins (I’ve never seen the original). I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older, but it just seems to be glorifying and straight-up encouraging rampant drinking, drugging and sexing among teenagers to an audience of teenagers. Face it, MTV is a children’s station. They might as well put Skins on Nickelodeon.
I agree that people should watch Bob’s Burgers instead — it’s a very body-positive show in its own right (Louise!). I’m glad it’s on right after the Simpsons, so maybe it will get some viewer spillage…
I feel like such a snob when I say the UK version of skins is so much better than the US version, but mostly because I tell people that I learned about how good it was when I took my private jet to Tony Blair’s castle and watched it on a 600inch TV mounted on the back of an elephant’s ass while drinking English Breakfast.
What I don’t understand – and sorry if this has already been mentioned – but who gets paid to pitch TV shows that already exist? “Hey network execs, I have a very solid idea for a teevee show. It’s called Skins and it already happens to be a show in Great Britain. Sure, sure, we could just re-air those episodes on America’s MTV as though they were brand new. But let’s say we remake it verbatim using American actors? How’s that for an idea? I mean, these kids would never watch the original British episodes. …True, true these kids were raised on Harry Potter and didn’t seem to need that Americanized, but still…that’s my contribution to this meeting. I worked all night on it. All night.”
This is eerily close to my idea for a show about teenage yarn enthusiasts called “Skeins”.
Besides being a blatant copy, it seems only pretend to do and tell the same thing (I’ve already seen), but removing the British accent.
I will not give even a meager chance this unnecessary remake.
The best thing about US remakes of UK shows and movies is how much they piss off Brits and Australian anglophiles!
Even though the American one was almost word for word like the British one, THEY ARE SOOOO DIFFERENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yeah, the british one is sensational and unbelievable but the fact that they have actors who can, you know, act, makes it so much BETTER!
UK Skins is an acquired taste.
US Skins is a devoid lack of taste.