Skins, Tuesday 10pm, Channel 4
Posted by Amanda Vlietstra
Our rating: 
It wasn’t THAT long ago that I was at sixth form college myself. Well, OK, it was 15 years ago, and yeah, the kids at my Devon college did spend a lot of time experimenting with booze, soft drugs and each other. But that’s where any resemblance between Skins and real life ends.
For a start, were these kids from the poshest comprehensive in the world ever, or what? The entire cast, apart from nerdy Sid, spoke with the straight-from-stage-school accent we’ve come to expect of the kids in the Harry Potter films (yes, Emma Watson, I’m talking to you.) How they had the gall to laugh at the Hugos and Abigails from the nearby private school who were only fractionally posher than they were, I don’t understand.
Self-consciously wacky Cassie was irritating beyond belief. And however cool he is, no straight 17-year old boy could pull off singing songs from an Andrew Lloyd-Webber musical without being mercilessly tormented by his peers – yes, Tony (aka Nicholas Hoult), I’m talking to you.
As for the idea of a nerd being able to get drugs on credit from a dealer he’d never met before – I really, really don’t think so. I’d heard the script for Skins was cracking, so I was pretty disappointed with the first episode. It was trying far too hard – unless this fictional sixth form college is actually located in the town of Hollyoaks, of course...
Skins is amazing- if it were realistic then it would be boring. And Hollyoaks is even better than Skins- the scripts for both shows are amazingly well written and acted!
Posted by: Beckie | 15 February 2008 at 23:01
I loved the 1st episode of skins! I hope the next one is just as good! Does anyone no if it's the same cast for the next show?
Posted by: vix | 03 September 2007 at 15:11
how come you are only watching the first episode now? don't you have digital?
Posted by: dj meathead | 03 September 2007 at 12:44
it's a tv programme, who cares if it's realistic?
Posted by: | 29 August 2007 at 22:55
| love Skins it teaches you about what could happen and prepares you for it .
im thirteen
Posted by: dog | 29 August 2007 at 21:07
to be totally honest, no skins is not reality - but who can expect it to be? how many teenagers do you think would sit down to a show that is like a real 6th form? it would be boring and rating would plummet. to see this its like seein the extreme re-procussions and what probably wont happen, it makes you feel better about yourself cos you can look at it and think 'well at least my life isnt that messed up'. it helps you escape your reality and get away from it all.
id just like to point to your snipe at hollyoaks - to be honest hollyoaks is better than corronation street and eastenders - how many pathetic murderers, fires and fanatical story lines to THEY have? jeez, the amount of fires in coronation street they'd have stupid insurance coverage!
and yes, hollyoaks is unreal as well - but at least they have the decency to not plaster a murder across your screens, or mis-interpret diseases (like coronation street speeding up mikes death so they could put it in for the next award ceremony)
so anyway, skins is a great show and i think perhaps your looking at it to critically, becuase it isnt designed for someone who left 6th form 15yrs ago - its meant for teenagers of TODAY.
Posted by: Blackout | 29 August 2007 at 20:25
I''m at 6th Form College and yeah, Skins is a great show and everyone my age loves it, but we all just watch it for entertainment - not becuase it's anywhere near a reflection of our lives. It's very farfetched
Posted by: skins fan | 29 August 2007 at 19:05
Ok so "SKINS" does require you to suspend disbelief and allow reality to mix slightly with fiction. The fact is not what it doesn't show but what it does. For example, the "Self-consciously wacky Cassie was irritating beyond belief" is an unfair response to the character as she is a model for how anorexics think- she orders food to feel that there is order in her life.
As far as Sid being able to get drugs on credit being a ludicrous impossibility- I would just like to point out that that is a touch naive- dealers are generally quite willing to supply on credit if they think that you will become a regular source of income. It is often only when you fail to repay the debt that there is any type of issue.
Personally, I think that this programme is one of the best to have graced our screens in a while. And demonstrates extremes of the adolescent stereotype extremely well and poigniantly as we have all known one or all of the following: the cool kid, the weird kid, the gay kid, the asian kid with the strictly religious family and the nerdy kid.
Posted by: sticklebrick | 27 August 2007 at 15:29
Posted by: Carryl | 23 August 2007 at 23:00
Why do people like this get to try and persuade people that this is not a good show, its great, one of the best shows in years on the boring box.
Posted by: prawn | 23 August 2007 at 20:54
Why do people like this get to try and persuade people that this is not a good show, its great, one of the best shows in years on the boring box.
Posted by: prawn | 23 August 2007 at 20:52