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Obligatory Thursday Skins Post
My overwhelming feeling is... meh.
I actually quite liked Franky and think she could be a cool character, but I wasn't hugely interested in the story. Mostly because there didn't seem to be much story. I kept waiting for something to happen, and it never really did. Girl is bullied; girl finds friends. (Too bad two of those friends are Rich and Alo. It's really hard to feel happy for Franky when you consider that.) And that was basically it.
The only other character I'm remotely interested in is Mini, and that's just to see if there's a reason why she's so heinous. But really, it was fairly standard Mean Girls characterisation, wasn't it?
Grace was super annoying. Liv was whatever. Nick hardly did anything but is probably awful. Matty was eye-rollingly pretentious. Rich and Alo were just dreadful. Basically, they're all twats and need to fuck right off.
I guess I'll keep watching just because I feel vaguely obliged to, but I could easily give up. In terms of writing and acting I'd say it's better than US!Skins, but it was much less likeable.
Also, did we really need to see Alo's arse? Jesus fuck.
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My thoughts exactly. Like, the difference for me between US!Skins and UK!Skins is that my interest in UK!Skins basically lives and dies by each episode. Really, the only characters I'm genuinely interested in are Franky, Grace, and Mini (if only to see how and why anyone could be that horrible). Whereas with US!Skins, it may falter in terms of writing and acting, but I really want to know more about each character and see where everything goes. With G3, I'm kind of just like ... eh. Don't really care.
I would have liked to know WHY Franky was bullied before Roundview. Like, yeah, I guess she dressed a bit strange and she does have two dads, but there wasn't ever a point when I was like, WOW FRANKY IS SO ~WEIRD. Idk, none of the bullying ever really made sense to me.
Grace was kind of over the top, but Idk, I liked her. She seemed ... sincere, I guess. I didn't like that she was basically stalking Franky after knowing her for five minutes. I felt like any second Grace was gonna grab Franky and snog the hell out of her. It was awkward. And what was with the random shoplifting? Idk, Idk.
Mini is terribly unlikable -- it's like the worst parts of Katie and Michelle shoved together into one person. And yet, I want to know why exactly she's such a goddamn bitch.
Didn't have much of an issue with Liv, but Rich and Alo were just ... stop. Matty is like a male!Effy and yeah, I was rolling my eyes at his and Franky's horribly contrived scene. (And people said the scene with Tea and her grandmother was contrived? Jfc.) Do not care about Nick at all.
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Yeah, I agree that more context for the bullying would have been good. I don't know if we can expect more backstory or if this is as much as we're going to get.
I actually liked Grace a bit more as the episode went on (she started off REALLY annoying) but she just didn't feel like a real person to me.
I was expecting to ship Franky/Mini but wow, Mini was SO awful to Franky that I just can't.
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EXACTLY. And I don't agree with the people who say this is better than 301 -- at least in 301 we got to see equal amounts of almost every single major character (Thomas excluded), where here we didn't really see Nick at all and Rich, Alo, Matty, and Liv played minor roles. All I know about Grace is that apparently she REALLY LIKES Franky. I feel like I don't really know anything about these characters at all, Franky included.
I mentioned it to someone before and I think it applies here -- this episode didn't have a ~plot, but it was bright and shiny and ~action packed~ so everyone thinks it's great.
I was expecting to ship Franky/Mini but wow, Mini was SO awful to Franky that I just can't.
I seriously could not agree more.
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this episode didn't have a ~plot, but it was bright and shiny and ~action packed~ so everyone thinks it's great.
Totally agree. There were lots of moments that I thought were enjoyable but it just didn't really add up to much. Whereas last series it felt like a character's whole story was told in one episode, this one was the opposite and it felt like nothing progressed at all. And because it wasn't a proper introduction to the characters, it didn't even really set up any interesting dynamics.
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Yep. I expect to never see Franky's dad again or having the bullying issue be brought up again or anything like that. It's all, Well, that done with, never need to touch that storyline again. And that really bothers me.
There were lots of moments that I thought were enjoyable but it just didn't really add up to much. Whereas last series it felt like a character's whole story was told in one episode, this one was the opposite and it felt like nothing progressed at all. And because it wasn't a proper introduction to the characters, it didn't even really set up any interesting dynamics.
Again, completely agreed.
I thought I was going insane because I saw so many people being all, OMG THIS IS THE BEST GEN EVER and I was just like, Wow, really? It wasn't a BAD episode, but I feel like G2 and even G1 were so much more lovable. I look at Mini and Nick and Rich and I'm just like, really? Even though Tony was a dick and Cook was a cock and stuff like that, they were still lovable in some way. I don't feel this at all with G3. I WANT to, but I just don't.
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Having watched it again, I feel like the balance was slightly better than in S4, in that everyone got a little - and I mean little - moment to shine. But like other people have said, I'm not sure how they're going to do with picking up threads in the next episodes.
Grace gave me whiplash nostalgia for Cassie and Emily. I can't remember the line she spoke, but I wasn't actually watching and just listening, and it felt so Hannah Murray to me.
Mini gives me the anger mist, I swear. Yeah, Katie and Chelle had their moments, but fuck, she's on a whole new level. Girl must have some serious issues. I can't fathom how Grace and Liv are her mates aside from that whole weird peer pressure thing. Liv just seems like she'd tell her to get fucked at the earliest opportunity and Grace, well, I suppose she naively thinks she's good at heart. It's somehow worse to me that they both know that how she's treating Franky is wrong (hell, everyone does) but they're all complicit in allowing Mini to carry on doing it.
Rich and Alo were less annoying than I thought they were going to be.
Nick may as well dissapear. I don't like this preppy rugby jock with hidden depths. I'm going to ignore his presence until his episode.
This was a good opener, with nice moments here and there, but I wouldn't start bandying about that this lot are the best thing since it began. One episode does not a Gen make.
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I could not agree harder with this. Everyone's praising this Gen as if it's the best thing since sliced bread and it's like, um, you don't even know them yet.
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Though I think the 'OMG awesome' feeling that some people are having is basically connected to the fact that it didn't suck. My immediate thought in the first break was "Thank God it's not as terrible as I thought it was," which leads me to believe this early praise has a lot to do with relief.
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Yeah, it does seem weird. Why didn't they just tell Mini to fuck off at the party? For all it felt like Mean Girls, it didn't actually make that much sense because they didn't quite seem to have that Queen Bee/popular girls thing going on. IDK, maybe it'll be fleshed out more in future eps.
This was a good opener, with nice moments here and there, but I wouldn't start bandying about that this lot are the best thing since it began. One episode does not a Gen make.
Definitely agree. It was a step up from series four but who knows how it's going to pan out. I mean, maybe I'll start to love them all! But it's really too early to tell.
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Though, I do think that what Mini got Nick to go re: Franky's pictures and all that was just a warm-up exercise, and she has the capacity to be a hell of a lot worse. So maybe that's how she keeps them, because they're afraid of crossing her. For now at least anyway.
It is too early to tell how it's going to go. I mean, did any of us seriously imagine that Freddie would be dead by the end of series four?
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That makes sense. This is actually making me kind of interested to find out how their friendship developed in the first place, but we don't tend to get a whole lot of backstory on Skins so who knows if it'll ever be properly addressed.
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Backstory is where us fic writers come in, we don't have broadcast constraints. Ha.
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That's my suspicion, because it would explain why Grace and Liv still feel loyal to her. But then what made her change? I think maybe Liv was complicit in earlier stuff like this because she said something like "It's not Year 11 anymore," implying that they used to do this stuff but she's grown out of it, but I can't imagine Grace ever being like that. Hmmm.
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I doubt that their group will last long though, and Mini isn't going to like it when the pair of them start to build their own lives without her. The stuff at the shopping centre was just a taster, and look how badly she reacted to it.