Discovering SKINS

I have a confession to make, when SKINS premiered on BBC America a year ago, I started watching part of the first episode and then just gave up on it.

Why?

Well, it just didn’t look like something that I thought I would enjoy because at the time I had so many shows to watch already on my schedule so I wasn’t in the mood. Honestly I didn’t give Skins a chance.

Fast forward to today (a year later). I recently received some screeners for Season 3 of Skins, which premieres tomorrow, August 6, at 9pm on BBC America, and thought it was time to give the show that has received so many praises another chance.

And so I spent the last week catching up on season 1 and 2 of Skins in order to be able to write my review for season 3.

Well let me tell you, I stand corrected. Not only is Skins a really amazing show, I have become addicted to it. I could not put the remote down and would just watch episodes back to back, cursing whenever I finished a DVD and had to wait for the next batch from Netflix.

It was like, where have you been Skins? How did I not know you before?

I will admit that it takes a couple of episodes to really get into the show, but from episode 1 I realized that I hadn’t given Skins a fair chance the first time around. However, I am sort of glad that I only discovered it now because I got to watch both seasons back to back, which was such a great experience.

So what is Skins about? It follows the lives of a few teenagers as they deal with life, love, and heartbreaks. But as opposed to a teenage show on the CW, Skins is gritty and feels true. The cast doesn’t look like it has been taken from a magazine page, but actually feels authentic and is relatable. Skins is also not afraid to deal with a lot of taboo subjects that teenagers are faced with truthfully.

But most of all what makes it different from other shows is that each episode focuses on one of the characters of the show and everyone else’s story is seen through their eyes and storyline in that episode. It’s really brilliant and so well done.

And if I thought season 1 was good, well I was even more blown away by season 2.

The cast is made up of mostly unknown brilliant actors, which only help make you fall in love with the characters and relate to them and the things happening in their lives. These could be people that go to your school or even your friends, which is something I rarely feel in American shows about teenagers. Skins proves once more how brilliant and out of the box British shows are. Although a fun fact is that Dev Patel, whom you probably now know from Slumdog Millionaire plays one of the characters in Skins.

So if you haven’t yet, please do yourself a favor and check out Skins, especially if you love teenage dramas like Friday Night Lights.

As for season 3 of Skins, well I will be watching that tonight and will have a review ready for you tomorrow right in time for the premiere tomorrow night at 9pm on BBC America.

I alos posted quite a few pictures from the show a year ago when it first premiered. You can check them out here. I also posted the preview for the show below for you to check out, and an awesome dance scene from the first episode of season 2 (as a So You Think You Can Dance fan, it was definitely something I appreciated).