TV: Skins – Series 2

Somewhere between its first showing and a subsequent re-run on terrestrial television, E4’s Skins has inexplicably become something that is spoken of almost reverentially. Despite packing the unwelcome sting of a sharp punch to the face, all eyes have turned to the second series which promises a darker and, crucially, better plot.

If you’re late to the party, Skins centers around the Bristol-based antics of the hugely unlikeable Tony (played with a charismatic relish by Nicholas Hoult) and his bunch of wacky friends, all of whom manage to be basically one crazy teenage stereotype after another. Throw in some swearing (this show has edge, by the way) not to mention a heady cocktail of sex and drugs liberally sprinkled over a bunch of delightful individuals each with their own broken moral compass and repeat for forty-five minutes.

It didn’t help that to begin with, the series didn’t know what kind of tact to take with its ostensible protagonist, Tony. A womanising sociopath, we were clearly supposed to take to this chap as a super-cool antihero, except he’d been written as so much of a bastard that when he was run down by a bus in the denouement to the first series, there was no emotional weight, just a smug satisfaction that the cretin had got what he deserved. He was supposed to have gone on a journey of self-realisation but he’d been so odious to begin with, it was hard to care.

When we re-join Tony and pals at the start of the second series, he’s still battling with the fall-out of his accident – a “traumatic subdural haematoma with motor and receptional complications”. It’s simply no excuse to say that this was planned all along, nor should it be the case that someone has to wade through nearly three and a half hours of middling teen-drama just to get some kind of pay-off. Tony’s friends are on his periphery now but still continue to feel as if they have been written by someone who has forgotten what it was like to be a teenager.

Tony’s condition is one of the more dramatic changes the series has seen and it’s reassuring that there’s no quick fix (and nor should there be, although one senses a recovery money shot is not too far away – close-up on the eyes, eyebrows arched with Lucifer-like evil, complete with exclamations from everyone like ‘Tony’s back!’ before he shags his way around half of Bristol).

Like that, Skins suddenly gets a dose of badly needed depth that it still lacks whenever Tony is off-camera. Much has been made of the appeal Skins has not just to anyone over the age of 15 but to adults too, but such intangible magic is in short supply. An effort has been made to seed a few narrative strings which implies promise of what is to come but it still feels a little predictable and dare I say it, slow going.

In fact, the only thing more mystifying than Skins’ suddenly all-encompassing demographic reach is how it remains so bloody compelling.

Catch Series Two of Skins on E4 on Monday nights at 10pm, or on Channel 4 on Thursday nights at 10.35pm. For more Skins related shenanigans, click here.