Catalyst: Second series of the BBC drama Skins
This show is SOO GOOD. Yeah it has lots of teenagers having sex, doing drugs, cutting each other with words and generally making bad decisions, but all of them are so complex and three dimensional that it's hard not to emphathize with them, to have a visceral reaction to the way they blunder through their life, striving toward acting more like Responsible Adults.
I knew, once MTV got its hands on the rights to an American version, that it was doomed, that there was no way they could tackle the themes and issues with the same care and sensibility. And the whole thing about Skins was that it was set someplace in the UK and had its own vernacular. The BBC production had 18 and 19-year-olds writing the script, getting each word that was spoken and unspoken to ring true and poignant and not-predictable. That's the thing with good writing, isn't it-- not just what the characters say but what they don't say to each other and choose to withhold.
I had a definite favorite character from the first season, but in this second one I can't decide. They're all so much more layered and even if almost every episode has a sort of twist ending it's never completely surprising and makes sense considering all the events and foreshadowing leading up to it. I don't want to give anything away about the plot of the second series.
There's something special, also, about stumbling upon something this good. I found out about this series because 1) I read somewhere that it was like Gossip Girl but more daring and 2) that it was a big factor in Dev Patel getting cast in the lead role in Slumdog Millionaire. I guiltily admit that I got suckered into liking Gossip Girl but I don't watch it any more and only really like the first two seasons; it's the kind of show that's so bad it's good. At least for me. And without it there wouldn't be this gem of a blog devoted to the sartorial stylings of one of the main characters.
Interestingly enough (to me) this series was based on a popular teen book series and from what I've read it's vastly different (and superior) to the tv series. Shocker, that. In the third season of the show most of the main characters go off to college and the crucible of high school drama gives way to... pouty co-eds hung up on themselves. And not in a fun way. Coming back to Skins, I know that the third series focuses on a different set of friends. The original gang is now taking their GCSEs or the equivalent of the SATs and they're getting ready to go to university, and someone in the BBC is smart enough to realize that it's futile to keep following this same merry band of teens as they inevitably grow apart because they no longer attend the same school.
I distantly wonder what will become of Glee, since the entire original cast should be graduated at the end of the third season. It's too much of a hit (still, surprisingly) to shut down after that. The producers have huge shoes to fill in terms of casting, but I get the feeling that there will be more pandering to the audience in creating new characters. All they have to do is look at Glee blogs and see what the fans are dying to see. Gah, the first ten episodes or so-- the ones that were filmed and edited before all the positive reviews-- were so refreshing and wacky and fun. The production was clearly made-- nay, crafted-- to clearly follow Ryan Murphy's original version with input from FOX only so much as to keep within the bounds of what can be shown on basic cable television.
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