TV Rewind: Why Skins Remains a Gold Standard for Teen Drama Series
Photos Courtesy of E4
Editor’s Note: Welcome to our TV Rewind column! The Paste writers are diving into the streaming catalogue to discuss some of our favorite classic series as well as great shows we’re watching for the first time. Come relive your TV past with us, or discover what should be your next binge watch below:
For all the success that teen-focused shows like Gossip Girl, Riverdale, and Pretty Little Liars have had in recent years, modern television still struggles to tell grounded (or even particularly realistic) stories about young adult life. In Riverdale, we’re more likely to see the kids manage an underground speakeasy in the basement of the local town diner than fail a math test. And as for the girls of Rosewood, they’re much too busy getting terrorized by text message and investigating murders to do mundane things like worry about graduation.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s something deliciously entertaining about each of those dramas; their soapy relationships, twisty plots, and dramatic, often life or death stakes are wildly fun to watch. But for the most part, these shows choose to tell stories by simply transposing adult problems and situations onto younger characters, as though it’s completely normal for high school students to solve crimes, open semi-legal businesses and take over the leadership of a motorcycle gang fully comprised of actual grown, adult men.
If what you’re looking for is a story that reflects something a bit closer to the actual teen experience, your options suddenly become a lot more limited. But if you’re willing to look backward a bit, there’s a mid-2000s British series called Skins, a bold, controversial show that constantly broke new ground in the world of teen dramas by simply telling stories that accurately reflected the lives and problems of young people. (Editor’s Note: The less said about the American remake, the better.) True, the topics Skins often covered were those that forced older generations to face some uncomfortable truths about what their own kids were likely up to when they weren’t around. But few series have ever captured the dreamy cynicism that drives life at 17, a time when you feel like you can do absolutely anything but feel comfortable trying pretty much nothing, and are inescapably certain that your precise, sharp problems are the worst you’ll ever encounter.
Skins, to its immense credit, respects its young characters enough to tell their stories straight. It is a show that understands that teen dramas don’t need vigilante gangs or murder mysteries to be compelling, because trying to figure out what your life is supposed to look like—never mind the person you’re meant to become—is complicated enough. Because of this, the show gets almost everything about adolescence right, including its seemingly endless series of euphoric highs and tragic lows.
The show was also dedicated to telling its stories using actors that were actual teens. Rather than using twentysomethings who pretended to be high-schoolers, Skins actually cast young up-and-coming actors who were roughly the same ages as the characters they were meant to be playing. (And discovered talents like Nicholas Holt, Dev Patel, Kaya Scodelario, and Hannah Murray in the process.)
The series swapped its cast out every two years—or “generations” as it was referred to—basically sending the characters off to the real world as soon as they’d grown up enough to leave home. This not only allows us to meet a new batch of teens every two seasons, it serves as a constant reminder that no matter how wild and crazy this time in our lives may have seemed at the time, it does end; no matter how impossible it seems, we grow up.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
