Once the epitome of innovative UK ‘youth’ television, drug-fuelled teen misfit drama Skins has somewhat lost its credibility over the years. After a phenomenal initial cast being replaced by a somewhat lacklustre and unlikeable group for the third and fourth series, it’s safe to say that hype for this fifth run is relatively low.
However, meet Episode 1’s pivotal character Franky (Dakota Blue Richards) and your cynicism wanes somewhat. A tiny La Roux lookalike with a deflated attitude to match her deflated fringe, she comes to hedonistic Bristol from conservative Oxford after experiencing bullying at college in the latter city. Franky sports a striking Nazi-androgynous dress code, odd for a girl who wants to avoid teasing, but we’ll go with it.
Poor Franky doesn’t initially seem to fare much better in Bristol, not helping herself by crashing into the college bike rack on a scooter on her first day, attracting the attention of tall, popular, posh bitch Mini and her gang. Played by newcomer Freya Mavor, Mini is a bizarre character, simultaneously attempting to take our heroine under her wing and destroy her at the same time, neither acts of which are explained very well.
It’s hard to know whether to despise or pity Mini at this early stage, and whether or not we actually care enough about the character to do either is still debatable. In her crew is so-far-pointless Liv and ditzy Grace, the latter essentially a copy of generation one’s Cassie, minus the manic depressive tendencies. The three of them all feel like heavily-trodden ground, without the memorability factor.
On the other side we have the college weirdos: cocky farmer boy Alo (Will Merrick) and chilled metalhead Rich (Alexander Arnold), who are probably the most regular teenagers to appear on the show since lovable Sid. There’s an obvious divide between Mini’s crew and Alo’s crew, but again, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. Needless to say, there’s also the token mystery character in the form of pretentious Matty (Sebastian De Souza), who randomly meets a distraught Franky in a field. Anyone who uses the phrase “glorious fucking headfuck thing” as a chat-up line better become less irritating pretty damn quick though.
As the episode closes, we get a brief glimpse of a friendship group forming between Franky, Alo, Rich and Grace. Along with the fact that Franky is a half-interesting character, this is just enough to tempt us back for Episode 2 next week. With the Skins formula dictating that none of the characters, bar Franky, have really been properly showcased yet, there’s still time for this generation to prove themselves, but they’d better make it soon.
Airs at 10pm on Thursday 27th January 2011 on E4.