Exes

Right, I’ve had enough. The gloves are off.

I hate to generalise, but this is not a generalisation, it is an undeniable fact. Exes all suck. Ex-boyfriends, ex-girlfriends, ex-husbands and wives, ex-fuck-buddies, all of you need to buck up your fucking ideas. Whether you ended things mutually or not, your exes have got to go.

The reason this isn’t a generalisation is because they are always the bad guy, not you. Whether they messed up or you messed up, it’s always them who messed up. Its in our nature to antagonize. The problem is that you spend so much time pissed off at them and expend so much energy that you sacrifice your own happiness. That is something I am very not cool with.

Comedian Russell Kane speaks of the “kitchen floor reset”, where you end up curled up on the kitchen floor in front of your parents, friends or other miscellaneous family and wail like a banshee, with the odd screech of “If only they’d just-” and “It’s all their fault…” strewn here and there. Its an accurate description. Mine lasted roughly a week and a half, and was absolutely literal. I moved my mattress into the kitchen and didn’t move, with only the occasional trip to the SPAR downstairs stopping the muscles in my legs from waving a little white flag and vacating the premises. This I blamed on my erstwhile flatmates at the time, but no, it was me keeping myself on the kitchen floor, me getting the letters from the university telling me they would throw me out if I didn’t start attending things again, and me who pulled my shit together and came out of second year with a movie script and a fairly decent grade. You can spend your time being a miserable sod, or you can pick yourself up and get moving.

That I came through that, albeit with a scar or two, makes me not only fairly intolerant of exes, but also a little frustrated when people ignore good things that are staring them in the face, especially when they should damn well know better and know that they know better. But the fact is, no matter how strong willed you are, exes are fully capable of putting your life on hold for an unknown period of time. There are those people who flit between guys or girls every couple of months, and if you can do that fair enough. I won’t judge, but its pretty clear that you never really gave a shit about those people in the first place.

Forcing beliefs on people is something I’ll save for another more furious rant, but my own belief is that everything happens for a reason. You can’t bury your head in the sand and expect it to all be okay, you have to put yourself out there and make your own happiness. Yes, these feelings and exes won’t go away, but it’s on you to use them, let them motivate you, not bring you to a standstill.

So, if you now feel like blasting out Destiny’s Child’s “I’m A Survivor” and dancing like a crazy person, go for it. I’ll try to be less Dear Deidre in future.

2012
04/20
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Skins Series 6: Vol 6 – Farewell To Mediocrity

I know its a small point, but I found it a little odd that this episode, the finale of series six, was the first one to include any mention of university. When I realised that it made me laugh. I suppose when your having a baby. being arrested as a pedophile, being a crazy bitch, on the run from the police or dead the thought of higher education doesn’t really crop up all that much.

Skins doesn’t do finales of late. They seem to write themselves into a corner every time. Whether its dropping a murder plot to make room for lesbians with relationship issues, cock-teasing a marriage or stealing a canal barge, its meh at best and shite at worst. So I was surprised when this one started doing some good things. But this is Skins, and if there’s one thing the show does best, its be incredibly disappointing. 

So what happened to our intrepid heroes? Franky went off to Birmingham and found her sister, who turned out to be just as much of a bitch as she is. Nick outed himself as a weirdo stalker by revealing that he could track Franky’s phone. Mini was fine, dissolving all the tension from seeing her bleeding out the wazoo in the last episode’s final scenes, and had her baby after going on an all night bender with the gang even though she was going to have a baby. Rich got into Cambridge. Matty went to Jail. Gay One went to Thailand. Liv felt sorry for herself. Grace was still dead.

The title of this episode was “Everyone”, but really it could have been called “Franky Again” for all the devotion this show shows towards her. She had about half the screen time, and yes everybody got some closure but for fuck’s sake, if they were going to give her so much time why did they fuck up what the show had been building to the entire series?

Now we enter what has become a regular feature: the Franky’s Guilt section. They screwed it up. She learned absolute bollock fuck all in this series, which would have been less glaringly obvious if she hadn’t been given so much time to frolic around at the expense of more interesting people the entire time. They set the moment up (badly) for her to be alone with Matty and Nick, and all she had to say was “sorry”. That’s it, one apology for being such a c**t. But no, she spouted some piffle about loving them both, had the nerve to call Matty’s life “fucked up” when she is the one who fucked it up, and left. Stop apologising to the dead chick , it won’t change anything and frankly its boring. When you end the episode showing someone going to jail directly because of her, you’ve got to deal with this shit. A better way to deal with it would have just been to show less of her, swap her screen time with Rich’s. That would have made sense after the end of the first episode, when she was shown isolated from the rest of the group after the holiday. But no, they dropped it in favour of crow-barring in domestic violence, and adoption issues that were unnecessary. In the former case all it served to do was show her fucking some guy, and the latter was brought up too late to make any kind of difference to the character. And I might be more forgiving if Dakota Blue Richards could fucking act.

But anyway, now she’s gone away, hopefully for good. That leaves everyone else. It amused me that Nick got into Cambridge, because it seemed like he was following Grace’s example. It was a nice moment when he finally seemed to let her go, but it would have meant more if we had seen more of him. The issue of Grace was dealt with pretty well throughout the series, with her pretty much being the glue that held all these people together, and her absence was given a lot of more subtle moments. But really, did we need a character to replace her? Especially one that had literally no impact on anything? Of course, I’m talking about Gay One. If anyone is offended by me calling him Gay One as opposed to Alex (not joking, I actually had to look that name up) its better that than “Bum Boy”, which is what he is called most in the show. He was pointless and a waste of screen time that could have been given to other people like, again, Rich. You know, the person most affected by all this shit.

I don’t think there has been a show on television that has outstayed it’s welcome more that Skins. There wasn’t even a gradual decline in quality, it just nosedived every two years. If anything good comes out of this, it will be the career of the girl who played Mini, Freya Mavor, who was probably the best female actor Skins has ever had. Its just a shame it was this show she had to be in.

I was asked that same question again recently: “why do you watch Skins?” I watched it so you didn’t have to, I bit the bullet for all of you. So thank you for reading this series of commentaries, being with me on this painful journey. Will I do the same for series seven, their apparent swansong? If its as good as they want it to be I won’t have to.

Balls back in your court, Skins.

;)

2012
03/28
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Skins Series 6: Vol 5 – Final Approach

First, a bit of old news. Skins is dead, Channel 4 have cancelled it. As amusing as I found this, it annoyed me that the news broke so soon after the last blog post, almost as if the people in charge wanted to spite me.

I’ll probably talk about that more next time though, because the end is nigh. Only one more episode to go, and based on the last two it could go either way. Last week we had Liv and her imaginary cancer, which as end-of-the-episode twists go sucks so much I was almost pulled into the TV. It was another hour of television that was hit and miss, the biggest hit being what I’d been looking forward to for weeks: Franky being verbally cock-slapped over the death of Grace.

I know it seems like I’m harping on about this, but shit, no-one else is. If this had been addressed by any of the characters before this, I wouldn’t have to keep harping on about it. The death of a close friend isn’t something I’ve had to deal with in my 22 years on the planet, but I imagine the wound would remain open for some time. If someone was directly or indirectly responsible for this I wouldn’t be able to look at them in the same way. From a story point of view there is massive dramatic potential in that, but it was swept under the rug for such a long time here that its been jarring.

But I’ll come back to that. Matty’s return was probably the biggest actual event that happened in Liv’s episode, and what was most impressive was that he used his highly evolved psychic powers to find out where Gay One lived, whom he had never met. He wasn’t given a lot of time to do anything, he had a short confrontation with Franky that barely served it’s purpose before he had filled his allotted time. Something that came across both episodes was that Matty really needed his own story. I feel a bit sorry for the actor, who has been written out of half the series even though he is one of the characters with something actually interesting going on. However, his return has had a positive effect on things in one area, if only in making something a little clearer and sparking a character to life.

Now that Matty is back, Franky can no longer deflect all the blame onto him, and in her and Mini’s episode she finally started to endear herself to me a little. Her guilt really started to come through, and she showed exactly what she really is, a complete mess. She tries to redeem herself by running away with a confused and hormonal Mini after Mini’s mother tells her that she wants Mini to give up her baby, and Alo (understandably) freaks out about becoming a father, and being the last one to know about the baby. Franky means well, but this plan ultimately fails because it’s stupid. What’s worse is, this stupid plan might have made things a hell of a lot worse for both Mini and the baby.

Its all too little too late of course, the damage is already done. The unnecessary love triangle is in place, Nick has had his balls removed, the old conflict with Matty has been brought up again, and can Rich please start doing more than just being the one who dispenses wisdom? Surely he needs a bit of focus, but he’ll probably get that in the finale. He hasn’t had any time to deal with the events of the series, which has been a common problem here. We’ve barely seen anything from Matty, Rich, Gay One or Grace, and really Grace is the only one with a valid reason for not being there (death). Matty and Rich have a lot more dramatic potential than, off the top of my head, Nick or even Alo pre-pedophilia. As for the Gay One, I can’t even remember his name he’s so damn boring, and the writers apparently think the same thing. Why introduce a new character if you don’t plan to do anything interesting with them? The worst thing is that its pandering on the absolute lowest level, its like the writers thought there would be some kind of uprising if they didn’t write in a gay character. If you want to have a gay character, fine, but actually give him a character. All the Gay One does here is be either the gay best friend, or have sex with men. That’s one huge stereotype and a pretty narrow viewpoint of the gay community.

I’m going to put the ball entirely in Skins’s court here. If they impress me with the finale I’ll give their seventh series, apparently their swansong, a go. If they don’t its no bother, my task will be complete. I only hold out a vague hope for quality though. Skins, at least from what I’ve seen, doesn’t really do finales all that well. I suppose I’ll find out next week…

2012
03/20
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Those Goddamn Glasses

Before tomorrow’s installment in the Skins saga, I was saving myself. I like approaching Skins fresh, but the old faithful inspirational well that is Facebook plopped something disgusting onto my news feed; those goddamn glasses.

Those goddamn glasses that people wear. Not the glasses that are actually required for vision or for protecting your eyes from the sun. No, those goddamn geek glasses that people wear because they think it makes them look cool. Ugh.

Where the fuck did this come from? What’s the point? Do you want to look more intelligent? Are you trying to put the geek in “geek chic”? Are you trying to give Topman an excuse to sell the fucking things to a tenner apiece? Why don’t you do what the cheapskates do and pop the lenses out of the 3D glasses you get from the cinema?

They’re the best people aren’t they. You take one look at them and you can see the thought processes that led them to the moment you saw that telltale logo on the frame. What is more perplexing than annoying is that this trend has transferred from nights out in clubs to just generally in the daytime. Surely, if you’re a cheapskate, people are more likely to see that you’re a cheapskate in broad daylight.

But back to the “makes you look cool” point. If anything, at a glance it just makes you look like you have glasses on. Which of course gives the incredible impression that you… wear glasses. Uh…good for you I guess. While you’re at it why don’t you go and stare blankly at some comics and pretend to look interested, ‘coz geek girls will just looove that. True, the piffle that comes out of your mouth will dispel your bullshit right away, but don’t despair. You looking like an idiot amuses me.

2012
03/19
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Things I Like

I thought I would try something different, just to keep things fresh. I’m going to talk about things I like, which will hopefully not turn into some kind of passive aggressive series of back handed complements.

I’m not promising anything.

I like normality, the standard, but I really like the wish to be more than that. I like people who are happy: happy with how they look, with what they do, with how they are growing as people. I like people who ignore those who have had kids at 15 so they can get a council house who are telling them to grow up. I like people who have the capacity to affect the world, who don’t jump on bandwagons and talk about political problems that they can’t be bothered to help solve. I like ignoring those who rubbish the Olympics. I like dogs, cats, lions, tigers and bears.

I like people who didn’t dye their hair red just because Rihanna did it. I like people who don’t dye their hair green or pink or purple because they want to be different, when in fact they just seem the same as each other. I like people who wear the clothes they want to wear, not clothes that are part of a trend. I like free will. I like love.

I like the company I have at christmas and on my birthday more than the presents. I like being loud on quiet nights in the pub, and being loud on loud nights out in a club. I like singing along and dancing like a twat, and I really like doing that with other, like minded friends.

I like playing football, even when it gets unnecessarily competitive and we all bitch at each other. I like being lazy on the sofa with a beer and a lady. I like being lazy on the sofa with the dog. Basically, I like being lazy on the sofa.

I like short paragraphs. I like zombie movies. I like hating Skins. I like talking complete drunken rubbish, whether I’m drunk or not. I like knowing exactly who I am.

And if you read this and liked it, then I like you too. If you didn’t read it, you’re a c**t.

2012
03/14
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Skins Series 6: Vol 4 – You Don’t Have To Study Writing To Know That This Is Bulls**t

I didn’t think Skins could get worse. I was wrong.

Nick was probably the only character I gave a toss about coming into this series, but I’ve talked about the things that made him good enough times, and quite frankly I don’t feel like giving any praise at this point. Yeah, Franky’s episode was terrible, but I already hated Franky. Nick, I expected better from you.

I’d be severely ignoring my own principles if I didn’t point out that, at least in my humble opinion, YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE SEX WITH YOUR BROTHER’S GIRLFRIEND, IDIOT! While the sex in Skins is not as offensive as the gratuitous drug use because it actually moves the plot along, it’s a bit tiresome. By “a bit” I mean “very”. By “very” I mean “for fuck’s sake, write something fucking interesting.”

But I digress, what was episode six actually about? Well, Nick and Franky got together after some trite scenes at a 48 hour rave that everyone went to. Nick also had to pay an eastern European gangster (yes, really) a couple of grand so Matty (Nick’s brother, driver of the car in the crash that killed Grace) could get back to the UK. Again, the show cock teased the characters realising that it was Franky’s fault that Grace is dead, and then dropped the subject as soon as it was raised. You might say that they are saving that revelation for later on in the series, probably the finale, and there’s nothing wrong with building suspense in this way. If you think that, then you are wrong. If you want to build suspense, don’t do it at:

A) The expense of your characters.
or
B) The expense of what you have set up in the show up to this point.

If you do that, your show fails, people like me will blog about you, and worst of all your audience will see through your shit immediately. I have not heard one person say one good thing about this show so far, and that is a massive problem when the people insulting Skins and switching it off the target audience.

But again, I digress. Nick and Franky being a couple is another one of these points. These two characters had barely any interaction from the start of the last series until Franky’s episode of this one. That’s twelve episodes, and I assure you, the amount of time filler in those twelve episodes could have been put to far better use in setting this up. But even then, it would be a stretch. The pair have no chemistry, no snap, crackle or pop. The only way to have them get together is to do exactly the stupid thing they did, pop it into existence out of nowhere. Not some kind of casual, platonic relationship, because that would at least make some small bit of sense. No, it’s full blown love apparently. Sure it is.

So I stood defeated. I didn’t think Skins could get better. Again, I was wrong.

Franky and Nick were barely in episode seven, mercifully, instead we had a pretty good, if scatterbrained episode about Alo having sex with an underage girl. He still doesn’t know Mini is pregnant, even though she came close to telling him twice. I don’t find this that annoying, probably because I wouldn’t tell Alo if I was pregnant either. I’d say, actually, that this episode is one of the high points of the series. There were some genuine laugh out loud moments, like where Alo discovers that the underage girl is underage whilst having sex with her, but the biggest laugh was unintentional. Franky, returning to her weirdo-Yoda-advisor role that she had last series, emerged from Mini’s cupboard to dispense some words of wisdom. Of course, she had been there the whole time, hiding so Alo didn’t know she was eavesdropping, but the way the scene was set up made it look like she’d teleported in.

A few times, there were references to Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up, and I don’t think there is a better analogy for this show. The episode had an interesting feel to it, like Skins was actually taking a look at itself and saying, “you know, we are actually pretty fucked up, aren’t we?” Before it was revealed that the underage girl was underage, they had close ups of her in her underwear, she was as sexualised as any of the characters are. Alo is at her birthday party later on, and there is a dancing scene that was just fucked up enough to not be funny. It was a hard look at Britain’s youth culture, which is a mess, I don’t need to tell you that. It surprised me, because depth was the last thing I expected. It’s actually convinced me to lower my expectations further for the finale. But once again, I have to make the same point I always make when this happens. If you can inject subtlety and depth into your story and characters, why don’t you do it more often?

Next week, it should be all over. Skins comes to an end for at least another year. Or does it? They are going to have to cram a lot in there. Franky’s involvement in Grace’s death, the Franky/Nick/Matty love triangle, Mini’s pregnancy, Matty’s return, Rich dealing with his grief, the fact that they’re all presumably going to university…seems too much for one episode. Hmm…

*checks Wikipedia for confirmation of fears

…ah. I see. Right, there are in fact three more episodes, not one, and one of them is Franky’s. Freedom slips from my grasp…

2012
03/06
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Skins Series 6: Vol 3 – The Downward Spiral

Oh no. No, no, no. You were doing so well…

When I realised that things in Skins-Bristol were about to rapidly go south, I was pretty surprised. All that early promise was shot in the face because of one character. Only one. The Skinsiest of all the Skins characters, a character who would be the show’s own version of self-parody if it wasn’t so face palmingly obvious that they were trying to be serious.

Franky. I fucking hate Franky.

Her episode, like the girl herself, was over the top and completely contrived. Without her I honestly think the show would be better, because she makes characters worse by proxy. Nick, my favourite character because he is one of the only people with an actual arc, has just been completely neutered. Mini lost her balls for some reason. And where the hell was everyone else? No Rich, no Liv, no Gay One, no Alo, barely any Mini, it’s like the series just stopped dead for Franky and what happened? We got to see Luke again. If you don’t remember Luke, he is the guy from Morocco who Franky flirted with (even though she was with Matty at the time…C**T!) and shares roughly half the blame for Grace’s death.

Skins, you are stretching plausibility here, the guy they just happened to meet in Morocco lives in Bristol too? My theory is that every arsehole in the UK must live in Bristol, that’s pretty much the only way to explain it. They had this whole gang war, mods/rockers thing going on, which came out of completely nowhere and will probably never come up again. I thought Luke was a student, I’m pretty sure they established that in the first episode. But no, he’s a…something. A guy who hangs out at a pool hall with other twats and fights people that are equally twatty.

I thought that we’d get to see some humanity from the girl, some guilt over what happened with Grace. In her episode this was brought up a couple of times, but these moments always cut off too quickly, as if the show was scared to show Franky as anything other than a weird cartoon. In terms of entertainment value, it was horrible to watch. Two remorseless, soulless dick heads fucking each other, never cutting to better characters because…I suppose whoever wrote this episode drowns kittens in their spare time.

But the reason Franky in particular is killing me right now is that she’s de-railed the entire series. There were no love triangles, no scenes that went nowhere, no character assassination, none of the shit that made series five such a pain in the arse. Now, it seems like they’re about to squeeze it all into the last three episodes, and it’s ALL about Franky. Does anyone actually care about Franky?

Anyway, then we had Mini’s episode, and Mini is pregnant (dramatic music). Presumably the baby is Alo’s but Mini’s been having sex with pretty much everybody since Grace died, so who knows? Mini is the one character that I feel like I’ve been the most harsh with. Honestly, despite the fact that she can be a complete bitch, her mindset is explained pretty well. Her parents, or rather her mother, have really screwed her up, so for the first time we meet the father. I really liked his character, even though he is basically the career focused Disney dad, because he seemed like a rational human being.

Mini’s episode was verging on being really good, it was so close, but three things ruined it. Firstly, the father completely got the shaft, at the end he was written completely out of character and I have no idea why anyone thought it would be a good idea. After being as good a father as he probably could be, he buggered off to Australia leaving nothing but a note? Nope, don’t buy it. Not for one second. We had some gratuitous cocaine use, which happened because Alo needed confidence to try and be a man. Why was cocaine needed for that? Couldn’t he have just gotten really drunk? Same effect really. Or is that not hardcore enough for you Skins? Lastly, goddamn Franky. Maybe her episode left such a bad taste in my mouth that whenever she showed up my heart sank. Maybe it’s because the writing regressed to facepalming levels whenever she appeared. Maybe it’s because she ruined what was potentially going to be a really good scene between Mini and Liv, where Mini finally tells someone that she’s pregnant. It’s probably all of those things.

We’re past the halfway mark on series six, so thankfully it will be all over soon. Raising my expectations really was cruel, potential was oozing out of the first three episodes. So now here they are, right back down again. Stupid expectations.

2012
02/21
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Kenny, Luis and Liverpool

Liverpool FC are a club with a rich history. Some of the greatest players, managers and pundits have been involved with them in the past. Taken on all they have achieved, you can’t really deny that they are a truly great team. Or rather, they were.

A lot of football fans already knew that Luis Suarez was a prick. His handball in the World Cup, although arguably understandable, pretty much proved it. We just didn’t realise he was a racist prick. A lot has been said about the clash with Manchester United’s Patrice Evra that sparked the race row and probably factored into the whole John Terry debacle, so I suppose I’ll way in.

Suarez’s argument that cultural differences meant that he didn’t understand that he was being racist are laughable. What he said to Evra is a derogatory term for a black person, and whether that is in Uruguay, England, Abu Dhabi or on the fucking moon it is still racist. I don’t think this is an issue that has been blown out of proportion, it is an issue that has been quietly swept under the rug for years. Now that rug has been pulled back and we see that despite all the protests that things have changed, not much really has.

In the reverse fixture, Suarez decided to blank Evra during the handshake at the start of the match. Wrong decision. Way wrong. For starters, the matter was pretty much closed and now it has exploded again. For another, what a prat. What’s wrong Luis, you didn’t want to touch him because you think it would make you dirty? Eh Klansmen? Or is it because as a footballer, you can’t grow some testicles and swallow your fucking pride.

If anything though, I’m more annoyed at Kenny Dalglish, who I’m surprised isn’t under fire to resign after what happened with Sepp Blatter. Kenny, you are going to consistently support this piece of refuse no matter what he does? No matter how thick headed it is? No matter how racist it is? No, you’ll make your players wear t-shirts supporting him whether they agree or not. You’ll dodge the question when it’s asked of you when you should be answering. When it gets to the point where your fans start monkey chanting you have a responsibility to take some steps. Because you know what Kenny? Liverpool are looking like a bit of a joke at the moment, and eyes are starting to fix on you.

It’s the raped cheerleader all over again, have some tact and some goddamn honesty. Football will continue to be populated by stupid old men like you Dalglish, and that makes the so called beautiful game look pretty damn ugly to me.

2012
02/12
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Skins Series 6: Vol 2 – Girlfriend In A Coma/Dead

We’re back to normal then I suppose. Back to Bristol. Back to bullshit.

Except we’re not. The drug abuse has been reigned in a bit. The acting is still better. Interesting things actually seem to be happening. And Grace…Grace is dead. Sorry Jessica Sula, you might not have been the worst actress on this show (you were pretty damn close though) but you weren’t in the Golden Compass, so see ya later!

Episodes 2 and 3 have been odd. 2 I liked a bit, but the twist (that Grace was in a coma/dead the whole time) was fairly predictable, and a little bit creepy when you look back over what happened. Basically there was a point where Rich was trying to have sex with her in the hospital while she was in a coma. Yow. I mean, seriously, he really should have been arrested, but that might have given the game away too early. I suppose David Blood understood how traumatic the car crash was for Rich, and presumably thought he had LOST HIS FREAKIN’ MIND. Just as an aside, if I had a daughter I’d probably be a bit funny with the boyfriends. The subtext of every conversation would be: “So… I want to fuck your daughter,” which would be awkward to say the least. Being caught by the in-laws (so to speak) is bad enough, but being caught while the girl is in a coma? From both sides its pretty much the worst case scenario, provided the girl isn’t then…dead…oh…

Morbid though it was, I liked seeing David Blood at the end. Chris Addison did a pretty fine job as the grieving father, and it’s actually a shame that we probably won’t see him again this series. At least he ended on a high though, good for him. Rich himself went on a journey, which is what makes the good episodes good. He was only thinking of himself, pushing everyone away, until he had to comfort the man who’s house he trashed the night before, the man who told the doctors to take Grace off of life support, the man who never approved of him. Rich could have screamed in David Blood’s face until he was blue, but he didn’t. It was a great moment.

Episode 3 was a step backward. For one, we have a new character to play with called Alex, who pissed me right off. He wants to live a life where everything is random, and I got that sinking feeling: this is the kind of person the Skins writers think is cool. How does he want to live this random life? He has a number of cards that have written on them six things to do, labelled one to six. These things include “punch the next person who walks in”, “kiss the person next to you” and “break into someone’s house.” Along with these cards he has a dice, which he rolls at certain points in the day and whichever number comes up on the dice, he has to do on the card. THIS IS NOT LIVING YOUR LIFE AT RANDOM.

For one thing, there are only ever six outcomes, all of which he controls because he is the person who wrote the cards. For another, number six on the cards is always the same, he even says this is a rule. A rule in a life that you want to live at random? Uh….what? All the things he does with Liv are just as un-random as this, even though they seem to be at first. The card game for example, seems random at first, but he cheats, then uses a two headed coin to win all the money. This isn’t random, this is planned. And does a full house really beat and ace high flush in poker?

What’s worse is, we then discover he is gay. Is this bad? In a way it is, because he has now been labelled, like all the characters were in the last series. He doesn’t need a label, he has enough going on without it, and I’ve got a feeling he’s going to end up as nothing more than the “gay one”, because we can’t not have a “gay one” can we? And by enough going on, I mean too fucking much. Seriously, Alex is so scatter-brained as a character he seems like the character equivalent of the dad-drawer, the place in the kitchen where all the useless shit goes. Corks, screw heads that don’t fit, random playing cards, that’s all this new guy is.

While most of the group seem to have grown up, I don’t like Franky for almost the same reason. She has regressed, de-evolved from what she was into just another first series knob-end. What I really hate is that no-one seems to realise that Grace’s coma and death is ALL HER FAULT. Yes I said it. It’s her damn fault. If she wasn’t such a complete fucking bitch who was going to run away with that tosspot on holiday, Matty wouldn’t have gone after her, and there wouldn’t have been a car crash. If she hadn’t been so damn selfish Jessica Sula would still have a job. Until episode 3 I thought that she was shouldering a lot of guilt, it certainly seemed that way. But no, at the end she had to go and screw that up by blaming Matty.

It’s her episode next. Are we going to get some answers? Is there going to be some development on her part? Are we going to see Rich again? And more Nick? There’s only one way to find out…watching more Skins. God help me.

2012
02/09
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Skins Series 6: Vol 1 – Car Crash TV

Whoever writes Skins definitely hates me personally. Why? Because the sixth series has started in the worst possible way for me. It’s started with a good episode.

Yes, a good episode, or at least an episode that I liked. I’m as surprised as anyone. Ah, the wonders that come from lowering your expectations. Yes, that is a back handed complement, this show’s record of screwing itself is well earned. However, I almost dare to be hopeful.

But why is it good? Well, the acting is a little better. The one from the Golden Compass is still shit and is playing Franky as a completely insufferable bitch, but on the whole everyone else seems to have put a little extra effort in. Plot-wise, everyone was given something to do, and the episode managed to set up the main plot of the series and a few other things that are going to be happening on the side as we go on. Maybe it’s just that there was a lack of drug abuse. Maybe it’s because Morocco is more interesting a place than Bristol.

The best thing is that there was a bit of subtlety. Up until the car crash, there was a lot of pretty decent character stuff going on, small moments here and there that gave us information that wasn’t rammed down our throats. What I liked the most though is that everyone was reacting to things in the same way as me. When Franky was being a bitch, the others complained that she was being a bitch. That Ryder bloke, who for some reason is hanging around them, is probably the most annoying twat in the world, and all the characters seem to agree with me. Matty was being a pussy, Nick told him to stop being a pussy. I like things like that, it made things feel a bit more real. Maybe I’m just really emotionally needy when it comes to TV. I don’t know.

The theme tune’s still shit though. They’ve actually somehow made it worse. Skins is supposed to be a gritty, post watershed romp, not a mid-afternoon teen soap on CBBC.

The reason I might be enjoying this is because I’m ignoring the failings of this generation of the show. The actors are all more convincing as a group of friends, but that’s only because I’m ignoring the fact that there’s no reason for them to be friends at all. Pretty much none of the potential lesbianism remains and is barely brought up, probably because it was as dull as a cloudy sky. The love triangles that kept popping up are gone, although there might be another one on the horizon. The rest of the series looks like it could be fairly interesting though, I suppose we’ll see come episode 2.

So Skins, for the love of Pete, keep it up. But will you keep it up now you’re back in Bristol? That is the question…

2012
01/24
CATEGORY
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