Buy Or Don’t Buy

As someone whose high school years were spent complaining, studying and being awkward, I’ve always gotten a vicarious thrill out of movies and TV shows that try to expose What Your Child Is Really Doing. It’s nice to know that even though I mostly played video games, I could have been out cutting myself, attending rainbow parties and abusing prescription drugs. However, as BoDB’s official Teen Television Correspondent, I have to say, American shows just aren’t doing it for me. The CW’s obsession with upscale lifestyle porn baffles me. When it comes to the youth of America, I don’t give a shit what handbags they like, just tell me what drugs they’re snorting and what laws they’re breaking.

Which is why I’m glad I found out about “Skins”, a British teen dramedy currently airing on BBC America. The show originally aired on E4, the British equivalent of HBO, but it’s basically a Showtime series: full of gratuitous cursing, nudity and drug and alcohol abuse. The show follows a group of 16-year-old students in Bristol which is apparently the happiest place in Britain, although you wouldn’t know from the show.

Like “Degrassi,” it’s an ensemble piece, and also like Degrassi, each character comes with their own issues, all of which are TOTALLY AWESOME. (Unlike Degrassi, the characters in Skins say things like “Ring me back when you aren’t actually being penetrated.” Oops!) See how many issues you can check off in the below clip:

It goes there.

Each episode is told from the point of view one of the main characters (awesome issues in parentheses): Tony (a sociopath), Cass (anorexia), Jal (racism, colorblindness), Chris (no parents), Sid (general nerdiness) and Michelle (pressures of popularity). There’s also Maxxie (token gay) and Anwar (token Muslim) but their shared episode is boring. As Alan Sepinwall has pointed out, the show does a nicely subtle job of getting into the different characters’ head each week. Tony’s episode is a bawdy sex romp, Cass’s is a dreamy art film and Michelle’s is like an episode of “The Hills,” full of acoustic guitars and staring off into the distance.

My favorite character, however, doesn’t get a showcase. His name is Posh Kenneth, and he pops up every couple of episodes to have a scene like this:

Also, as you may have noticed, the character of Tony is played by Nicholas Hoult, from “About A Boy.” Yes, the lovable moppet from that Hugh Grant movie is the one cheering up his gay pal with lines like “I’ll give you head, that’s friendship!”

Unlike “Gossip Girl” or “90210″, “Skins” doesn’t try to pretend that anyone cares about watching the adults, because let’s face it: teenagers think adults are fools. At its best, “Skins” is a reflection of what its like to be young, run free and be surrounded by idiots:

[NOTE: BBC America bleeps the worst words, pixelates the nudity, takes out the awesome songs and provides intermittent subtitles. LAME. Much better to watch it online. You'd do best ignoring "Tony" like I did and start by watching episode 2, "Cassie," here.]