Review: Skins

Before we even start talking about the first episode of the new season of Skins can we just discuss the opening titles for a second? As per usual they are the best thing about the show, but they're also artistic to the point of idiocy.

Why anybody would put an opening sequence so shiny and clearly full of effort onto this absolute shambles of youth television is beyond us. They make you think you might be watching something with vague pretensions of quality instead of a braying collection of ingrate arseholes.

Apparently the writers thought that 'Racism' might be a good theme to adopt this year and so the girls colour code each other and add the suffix 'bitch' to the end of all terms of endearment, for example: "Hey black bitch, hey white bitch." It's like a novelty smack-talking chess set. They all seem to be much more fulfilled in themselves though so it's clearly worth trying in your own life. Skins after all does come across as a manual for good, clean, wholesome living.

We're now old and haggard and not the intended audience, though it does seem that they don't really have an intended audience anymore, so the childrens' partydar is lost on us. If you're on holiday with your mates in a private villa with a lot of drugs then it's just not necessary to find and involve other even more meagre samples of the human race, they're just going to throw a spanner in the works.

Right on cue, after the whole Alo finally shagging Mini thing that we've been waiting all of ten minutes for, mechanical items are being lodged in all places and the horrible snivelling whiter-than-white boy, Luke, decides to consensually kidnap the no longer androgynous or interesting Franky. As Mini so aptly puts it: "I liked her better when she may or may not have been a lesbian," yes we just quoted Skins, get the fuck over it, it's a beacon of knowledge and hope for tens of people. Later there's a menial car crash which incapacitates Grace so that hopefully we won't have to hear her ridiculous excuse of a voice for the rest of the season other than in her cocking composition which will undoubtedly rear its head every time Rich is on screen lamenting the hopelessness of it all. Are you still with us?

Basically what's happened is things have got deep and everybody has lost their entire not very interesting to begin with personality traits and exchanged them for a styling session at American Apparel. There are more colour clashes here than character based ones and believe us when we tell you we have a headache now. Not even Chris Addison could be arsed to turn up for work so instead he sent a letter and they got Josie Long to say an extra line while still in the 'guise' of a dimwit, oh yeah Dobby from Peep Show is now in it because for some reason the older Brits are desperately clinging on to a hedonistic time gone by.

The issue with this third generation is that they are absolute wankers and they all know it.

At least last season Franky and her 'mind fuck' Matty were brooding and heavily emoting their teenage sexual aggression, now they're just arguing about Morrissey and Simone De 'cultural reference' Beauvoir. Quite frankly we think they should all just grow up and tell that Ryder dick to piss off because while he's barely ever on screen his musk lingers like putrefaction and he makes us want to punch ourselves in the face just thinking about his bare chest.

If there's one of these remorseless pricks that we do love to hate though, it's Kyle; the young twat responsible for making sure the soundtrack to each episode is, like, totally hyper relevant and boomin'. Of course he doesn't disappoint as the episode opens with an NME approved act Azealia Banks—bit sweary if you ask us—and then blasts through more Segal than you can shake a stick at with some Scott Matthews for those moments of melancholy, reflection, depression, death, and the moping. Maybe next week they can just stick the Scott Matthews record on and cut between some sombre close-ups, it sounds way more avant garde which is obviously the whole point of this exercise anyway.

There you have it, sub-species- our critical analysis of the first episode of the 'oh god when will it end' new season of Skins. It sure looks like it's going to be full of the hateful mediocrity that made all the other years such as delight. If getting a life was on your cards this year then now's a great time to consider putting that plan into action. Us, we wouldn't dare so we'll be right here all over again next week continuing to win the record for slowest suicide ever.