Skins: where did it all go wrong?

Just a warning, if you're not familiar with Skins, this one's gonna be pretty hard to follow.

To my mind, the first two series of Skins represent  some of the best British screen writing of the 21^st century. We had the first series that acknowledged that some young people take drugs and have unprotected sex and neither overdose nor get pregnant or riddled with STIs. It was a welcome change, as every other television program, at the time presented these as inevitabilities of anyone under the age of 20 socialising. The second series had a more focussed story based around original protagonist Tony, as he struggles to regain some part of his life, following a bus accident that left him brain damaged. This was a very effective story to have running for the whole series and the moment when the original Tony starts to surface again is very well executed.

So what went wrong? Why do I now hate this series?

The simple answer is that they got too ambitious. They should have stopped after two series. The third series, with new protagonist Effy got off to an alright start, but quickly revealed that it was uninspired and lacking in any new ideas. The love story of Naomi and Emily was good, but the way that they seemingly relied on a running of sub-plot of “Cook is irresistible to everyone” through being a moron and getting in fights was really stupid. The overall feedback that can be given for this series is a message to the writers of “come on, you can do better than this.”

The fourth series is where everything truly goes to pot. Opening with Effy and Freddy reuniting and Effy revealing that she’s been on holiday. Err shouldn’t she be in prison or on community service?…for splitting another girl’s head open with a rock. Oh wait no; she’s a popular character so she’s protected from consequences of her actions in the previous series. This is a product of another thing going wrong here. The writers let the real world popularity of the character get involved with the story. They didn’t want to risk Effy not being present, even though her presence makes no sense, simply because they were worried people would change channels if she wasn’t there.

They did exactly the same thing with Cook, but in a far worse way. It’s a far worse way, because things go so well before they do it.

Basically, towards the end of series 4, the consequences of Cook’s actions finally catch up with him, when he’s arrested for putting someone in the hospital and charged with GBH. After pleading not guilty (even though he blatantly is) he is released on bail, he is left with his mother, a previously unseen character who serves as the antagonist for the episode. And boy is she a good antagonist. She’s a selfish, childish and petty post-modern artist who seems to find a way to blame anything bad in her life on someone else, usually Cook. Through this, we start to get an idea of why Cook acts the way he does. We realise that he is a victim of someone who seemingly teaches her kids that there’s always someone else to blame for anything you do. We see Cook plead not guilty to a crime he very obviously committed and then we are shown why. He has been raised to believe that blame for his negative actions can always be attributed to someone else. It’s how his mother acts and it’s how he’s started acting. The episode ends with Cook changing his plea to guilty and apologising for wasting the court’s time. This is not him admitting defeat, this is Cook taking note of the damage his mother has done by acting the way she does and resolving to act differently to her. As a first step, he admits what he did and accepts that he’s to blame for it and deserves a to be punished. This is damn good character development. We now know where Cook came from, why he acts the way he does and we leave the episode with the knowledge that although he has been sent to a young offenders institution, he has moved forward and leant to accept responsibility for his actions.

So anyway in the next episode, we learn that he’s escaped from prison. Yeah well done guys; Cook leant his lesson and got sent down; now make sure he’s available for the next episode, as he’s a popular character. This move reversed all the character development that Cook went through; if he was just going to break out, why the hell did he plead guilty?

The worst part about this is that it could have been turned into another piece of good character development so easily. Cook bursts in and says he escaped, but we could have learnt later that he, after just a few weeks in prison he had psychological break down and he’s been released on licence. We could have had a reveal scene where one of the other characters notices that Cook’s wearing a leg tag and then points out that he’s been disappearing before a specific time every day, indicative of a curfew. Rather than reversing his character development, this would have helped it showing a vulnerable side to him and exposing the façade he operates under. He talks tough and gets into fights; but when things get real and scary and he gets thrown in prison, he can’t handle it, but he’s too proud to admit that so he’d rather his friends thought he escaped.

But no, he escaped and that’s that because why try to present an actual character when you can just have a collection of bad jokes and catch phrases?

But the thing that really sank Skins, the thing that really made me hate it was the laziness of the explanations throughout series four. Effy does weird things, why? Because she’s crazy. Cook does stupid things, why? Because he’s crazy. Freddy gets murdered by Effy’s therapist, why? Because he’s crazy.

They use the same excuse to justify everything that doesn’t make sense by saying that everyone is clinically insane or can go clinically insane when the plot requires it. That is utter rubbish and speaks to a lack of ideas. Should have quit while you were ahead guys.