Skins- Intro (If you like sex, drugs and British cursing, you're gonna like this show)

The other day I stumbled across a show on my Netflix Instant Queue called Skins and upon watching it decided immediately to scrap any further discussion of The Shield for the time being. (Ok, fine a little more Shield discussion. The season finale of The Shield was quite possibly the most gut-wrenchingly satisfying series-ender that I have ever seen. The scenes with Shane and Mora were heart breaking, as were the scenes of Vic coming clean to ICE. As sad and upsetting as everything ended, I couldn't imagine it working as well if it happened any other way. Vic was able to stay one step ahead of everyone else, only his final step landed him in a place more horrible than any fate he could have imagined, nine-to-five office hell.) Skins is a wonderful little British show about the lives of a group of high school friends. It is a serious, character driven comedy featuring a great ensemble cast of young actors.

One of the most interesting aspects of the show is hearing to the how these Brits talk. They have swearing skills that put the average American teen to shame. I have a whole new swearing vocabulary now. Oh yeah of forgot to mention....they can fucking swear on TV in England! The show originally aired on England's E4 Network, which, I think is a cable channel akin FX (I heard it was rebroadcast on BBC America, but it was censored, so fuck that. I also heard that MTV was in the process of developing an American version, which will undoubtedly suck). Skins is a high school dramedy with tons of swearing, nudity, weighty thematic content and copious drug use (the title of the show, Skins, is a reference to both sex and rolling papers, which are referred to as skins in England). If that last sentence alone doesn't make you want to fire up your Netflix and start watching this thing, maybe this isn't the blog for you.

While the show takes on a variety of issues and topics, at its core it is a show about friendship, sex, young love, losing your virginity, growing up and doing drugs. (I gotta be honest here; if I were to make a TV show, it would probably be about those same exact things, which is probably why the show resonated with me so much.) It is also a serves as a sort of social commentary about youth in the UK. Skins is a very self aware show. It knows it is a show about the lives of high schoolers, which is not exactly a ground breaking concept. It even makes reference to American shows with similar themes, namely Dawson's Creek, The O.C., and Friends. Although it isn't mentioned in the show, the most obvious comparison, at least to me, would be to Freaks and Geeks. It also reminded me bit of Glee at times (the soundtrack to the show is pretty brilliant).

The way Skins' episodes are structured is interesting and works really well. Each episode is told through the perspective of a different character, which allows the writers to experiment with different styles and delve deeply into the personalities of each character. The main characters are Tony (the ring leader), Michelle (Tony's girlfriend, who he refers to as Nips because he says she has weirdly shaped nipples. Hilarious.), Sid (Tony's best friend, has a crush on Michelle) Cassie (spacey but sweet chick with a serious eating disorder), Chris (totally in love with his Pyschology teacher), Maxxie (the gay friend), Jal (the musician), and Anwar (the Muslim friend, played by Dev Patel, the Slumdog Millionaire himself. By the way, if you didn't think Slumdog was the best movie of 2008, stop reading this blog right now and stick your head in an oven).

If you have Netflix, a long weekend and at least an eighth, pop on Skins and settle in. You will thank me later.

Check back early and often for episode recaps!