One Minute (and a bit) Review: Skins trailer

I managed about two and a half minutes of the previous series of Skins. It was hyped to the point where the viewer was led to expect Wim Wenders levels of production and cinematography. What you actually got was a budget version of Hollyoaks, except – ooooh, edgy – the kids occasionally talked unconvincingly about drugs and sex. Call me a stuck-in-the-past bore, but even as a kid I think I would have hated it, considered it unrealistic shit and followed up this thought process by yelling at my parents and drinking Cinzano in a shed.

So now series number two is upon us and even those of us who don’t watch it have to endure the fucking advert being replayed over and over and over and over and over again during every commercial break.

The Radiohead song that accompanys the trailer is quite classy. The first time. By the fifteenth it’s the sound of a cat being castrated over a spit. The visuals feature nubile lovelies of both genders wandering around a party in a confused state, presumably on drug-related comedowns in the early hours. One of them, that little boob from About a Boy, appears to be dead in a bath. Lots of girls make out with each other. Water drips from the ceiling. It is a hedonistic vision of glamourous decadence.

Problem is – these are little teenagers. Perhaps this’d work if we were talking about supermodels, rock bands or coke-dealers, but we’re actually dealing with little shits whose pocket money would probably stretch to one bottle of exhibition cider rather than a bag of the best pills known to man. In reality, they wouldn’t be kissing and making out and staring at the ceiling in blissed out confusion, they’d be dry-humping, puking into their own laps and smashing windows for a laugh. It is – frankly – bollocks. Only a Grange Hill boxset, an injection of hardcore realism, can save us now.

Tags: Crap TV, E4, Entertainment, Skins, Television, Trailer