Try a British Twist With Your Nostalgic Teenage Binge

Us millennials, we are going through a bit of an identity crisis. We are grown-up and, depending on your formula for determining generations, are well into our thirties. I personally have millennial friends who are currently raising actual young adults. But I think we also grew up a highly stereotyped generation that for a long time tied us stagnantly to our own young adulthood. It was put on us, and whether it be correlation or causation, I think more than a few of us still live it.

It makes sense. After all, our generation is the generation that epitomized the heyday of early 2000s network teen dramas. Between the CW and WB networks, the primetime of our adolescence was ripe with a multitude of characters who taught us the PG-13 lessons on safe sex, the beginnings of mainstream homosexual acceptance, the ethics of cheating in school, that all drugs are bad, and the ubiquitous inter-workings of the jock/nerd interface. From Dawson’s Creek and One Tree Hill to Gilmore Girls and Gossip Girl, our streaming nostalgic culture has allowed us to relive all of these hyper self-aware, angsty moments in all their binging glory. I personally finally got closure on some of the series I was never able to finish back in the day. And some of them are frankly brutal. I still cannot believe they really killed off Jen Lindley AND Marissa Cooper…

But anyway, for all of you children of the 90s who are looking to continue your guilty pleasure teen drama binge with an air of sophistication and maturity, Hulu has made available to us Yanks the irreverent mid-2000s British teen dramady Skins. Premiering in 2006 the world of Skins takes place just after the peak of US teen dramas, in what could be classified as the Myspace era of youth culture. The show centers on a group of teenagers in Bristol South West England and covers the familiar issues of sex, drugs, and growing up, but does so in a way that is altogether casual, absurd, and poetic. It is frankly a more British take on adolescence that somehow renders more authentic than what was offered to us Americans in our pop culture teen years.

The series, which ran for six seasons, is divided into three generations of characters, which brilliantly allows for the teenage show to be about real teenagers. There is no awkwardly following the same cast of characters into university or the unspoken addition of two years to the standard high school tenure. Skins allows their teen characters to grow up in real-time and then moves on to a new group of incoming teens. Within each generation of characters, plotlines intertwine while each episode generally focuses on one specific character, providing the opportunity to tell their more complex and psychological teen story which refreshingly does not often fit into a particular mold or clique.

In addition to keeping the characters authentically teens, the writing upholds the same logic by having employed a team of writers whose age averaged 21 and included a group of teen consultants. As such, the dialogue is free of the typical clichés built over years of retrospect and speculation of what it is actually like to be a teenager in the context of the show’s timeframe.

As one can imagine, it is hardly PG-13. The show in fact was quite controversial even to Britain’s much more liberal censorship culture. The show is indeed edgy and borderline lurid in its portrayal of teenage sexuality and drug use. But in the day and age of Game of Thrones and Shameless, nothing in Skins seems at all sensationalized. In fact, in contrast to the typical US millennial teenage drama which got away with pretending these “taboo” things were not part of the teenage vernacular, it is refreshing to watch a retelling that depicts these issues in such a casual if not raw way. Not surprisingly, the American remake of Skins that aired on the MTV network was canceled after one season, citing issues related to depictions of casual sex and drug use by underage actors.

At any rate, if the original version of Skins sounds like your cup of British tea, you are in for the extra surprise of seeing the early work of some very well-known and brilliant actors. The first generation (aligning with seasons 1-3) is especially wrought with a reputable cast. Nicholas Hoult (The Great), Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire), and Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out) are just a few of the actors who got their starts on Skins. And it is reassuring to see them in their awkward, but authentic adolescent glory.