- Network: MTV , MTV - Music Television
- Series Premiere Date: Jan 17, 2011
Season #: 2, 1
Critic Reviews
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What keeps it from being exploitative--just--is the sense that these kids know such dangerous exhilaration won't, can't, lead to the happiness they're looking for. [31 Jan 2011, p.40]
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While some plot elements and characters have been imported intact from the United Kingdom, the American show makes its own statement and will move away from its British roots in future episodes.
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While it may lack the charm (and perfect casting) of the British show, it's still worth a gander.
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The episode feels contrived, as the characters are introduced and try too hard to prove their anarchic cool. The next three episodes, though, are surprisingly thoughtful and even a little punk poetic.
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Really, though, you don't have to know anything about the British Skins to get into the remake.
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For all its cheekiness and raunch, Skins has more sweetness than snarky teen soaps like Gossip Girl.
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Skins feels raw and gritty. The characters' pain is often palpable. Only the show's target audience will know how true its portrayal of adolescence is, but it should make many parents pay closer attention to what's going on in their teenagers' lives.
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The show--a sporadically excellent adaption of a British teen drama--is superlative teensploitation, enabling youth to rejoice in the fantasy of their corruption, among other things.
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Skins is, alas, many types of teen drama to many types of teens--a raunchy good time and an Afterschool Special on The Way Youth Live Now rolled into one. It's a viewing experience akin to going to a coke party only to be given a lecture. Where's the fun in that?
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Skins is a bit clunky and even dated at times. Nor does it feel all that grounded in the real world, where it badly wants to be.
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Plopped down in Baltimore, the loose-living adolescents in MTV's seemingly line-for-line version don't actually feel American, no matter what their accents are, and the plots that always struck me as more teen movie than teen reality seem no more realistic than, say, "Gossip Girl."
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What's more bothersome about Skins from a critical standpoint is the thin plotting, the aimless narrative, and the generally flat and artificial feel of the production.
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Assembled through an open call, the cast (many of whom are 17 or 18) is extraordinarily natural. Where Elsley stumbles--especially in the opener--is the exaggerated dialogue, often more borscht-belt comedian than actual kid.
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The scripts are nearly line-for-line copies of the Brit version. But the scenes are over the top, the kids are too good-looking and seem to have spent too much time at acting camp.
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Surely, there are talented American writers not long out of their teens who could have helped craft a new group of characters and stories that reflected their own experiences - and with enough sex and drugs and mayhem to please MTV's need for extra attention.
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What in the original incarnation was shockingly cheeky, in its graphic and profane depiction of teens indulging in sex-and-drug debauchery, has been neutered and tamed in a remake that is unconvincing, amateurishly produced and very poorly acted.
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Skins is so determined to relate to hardened kids--without sermon, theme or context--that it accidentally discovers a new frontier in phoniness and filth. Even if I could warp time and watch it as my teenaged self, I'm pretty sure I would have been bored by it back then, too--even with all the sex.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 16 out of 47
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Mixed: 11 out of 47
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Negative: 20 out of 47
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Jan 17, 2011This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view.
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Jan 26, 2011
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Jan 17, 2011