
When MTVâs version of Skins premiered, it felt like a used car. The network didnât even bother giving it a new paint job: It just crammed a bunch of people dressed up as Tony, Michelle, and the whole gang into the vehicular equivalent of the U.K. series and drove it to a generic American city to see if it could rekindle the magic.
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In the showâs defense, it has traveled down different roads: Characters' roles have shifted, class distinctions have been altered, and the result has been a similar set of circumstances with a slightly different edge. However, as the showâs first season has progressed, Iâve come to realize that this is also a different car. Sure, the body may be the same, and the choice not to even give the show a new coat of paint in the early going still strikes me as ill advised, but something under the hood feels different. With each subsequent episode, the engine sounds a little differentâit still exists in the shadow of its U.K. counterpart, donât get me wrong, but Iâm willing to acknowledge (and hope that weâve all come to accept) that this is a different show.
This is no more apparent than in âTina,â where the seriesâ student-teacher relationship is examined from the side of the latter in a way that was never quite examined across the pond. There, Chrisâ affair with Angie was one of the showâs stolen moments, a storyline largely isolated within a single characterâs perspective. There was never a moment when the affair became broadly public, where an entire school was aware of their affair or even when all of Chrisâ friends became aware of the infraction. While Todd noted last week that the U.S. show tends to be more subtle than its U.K. counterpart, Iâd argue that this is one exception: Angie was someone whose influence on Chris was private, something for the audience to witness, whereas Tina has become more of a cautionary tale with very public consequences.
Itâs a tale that Iâm glad exists, if not a tale that I thought was particularly consistent. On the one hand, I am simply glad that we finally have an example of teacher-student statutory rape that is actually at some point identified as statutory rape. These kinds of relationships are a common television trope, most recently on display in ABC Familyâs Pretty Little Liars and The CWâs now-canceled Life Unexpected, but most shows ignore the âr word.â Sure, in most instances, the characters do not go so far as Skins in terms of having the characters consummate their relationship, but itâs one of the first examples of Skins being able to actually do what other shows seem unwilling to do. While there are a huge number of ethical issues with student-teacher relationships, they are caught up in complex emotional and psychological conditions that are unfortunate realities of human behavior; what condition, precisely, explains televisionâs desire to glorify this type of behavior without properly addressing its consequences beyond vague mentions of inappropriateness or illegality? Simply using the term âstatutory rapeâ is a victory for the episode, a rare instance of the U.S. series feeling as though it is breaking down boundaries in the same way as its U.K. counterpart.
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And yet, how progressive is this acknowledgement when it comes with jokes about prison toilet paper, an overzealous and overly patronizing police officer without any reason or purpose, and a stalker who flagrantly violates student privacy with apparently no consequence? While it may be âprogressiveâ to have Tina actually arrested for statutory rape and forced to resign in shame, the way the accusation was introduced and treated by the characters was farce, not satire. Itâs a fine line for the series, but there was no real purpose to the broad nature of that side of the storyline: Are they suggesting that police officers infantilize victims of statutory rape or that police officers have no sense of decorum (by performing the arrest in public and actively displaying disgust with minimal evidence)? While the portrayal of the investigation technically fits in with the showâs general approach to figures of authority, Iâd argue that it felt out of place in an episode that otherwise played with tone with a purpose.
That purpose, at least to my mind, is to investigate what happens when the seriesâ teenage haze overtakes someone who isnât supposed to be a part of that world. Skins operates with the understanding that there is this magnetic pull to its volatile cocktail of vices, creating a world where parties and love triangles spring eternal, a world that threatens to quell any sense of individuality. The showâs structure, then, seeks to find that individuality, to look beyond the raves to see the individual stories that are intersecting within that world. Itâs an intelligent structure, as it allows for ongoing storylines (like Tonyâs ostracization or Daisy and Abbudâs attempt to be friends with benefits) to appear in those moments of intersection in order to remind us of the seriesâ ongoing development.
âTinaâ explores what happens when those moments of intersection are unwanted consequences, when you find yourself swept up in a world that youâre not meant to be a part of. Tina, identified as 23, would be close enough to the kids' age that sheâd remember when she was meant to be having sex in treehouses and carrying around dozens of condoms and Viagra in her glove box in case her neighbor wanted a blow job in the strip mall parking lot. While the show went a bit far with the speed at which she was shown the error of her ways, as getting dumped from yearbook for a 15-year-old and the confrontation with a horny student who thought he had a chance were a bit overly theatrical, the idea of Tinaâs descent is well-met. While the idea that âteachers arenât grownupsâ is not exactly new and was not always played consistently, I think it adds an interesting dimension to this world and was very well played by Anastasia Phillips.
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My one concern, outside of the tonal whiplash obscuring some of the episodeâs larger statements, is what the decision to focus on Tina does to Chris as a character. While I thought âChrisâ nicely co-opted the British characterâs back story for texture, here he was a horny puppy with absolutely no understanding of the gravity of the situation. Chris, regardless of whatever feelings he might have, is a victim in this situation, but there is something about Jesse Carereâs performance here that felt as though it was being unfairly exaggerated (and marginalized) to fit Tinaâs perspective. The character felt like a joke, his plan for their future a phallic fantasy rather than an actual planâthis may be an issue of reading the U.K. characterâs trajectory onto this version, a part of the shadow that cannot be escaped, but it felt reductive to a character that if the show is renewed, which seems up in the air, would need to return to a central position.
I very much enjoyed âTinaâ in many ways. I appreciated the decision to journey into uncharted territory from the U.K. original, I applaud the decision to use the âr word,â and there were a number of small moments (which Iâll get to below) which I thought were pretty tremendous. And yet, I donât want to give the show too much credit when the tonal issues remain such a concern. In the past few episodes, which I watched earlier today, I saw a show that doesnât need to use the U.K. seriesâ inconsistencies as a crutch or as an excuse. In the beginning, it was easy to chalk it up to the adaptation, but I think MTVâs Skins has differentiated itself enough that its problems have become its own just in time for next weekâs resolution.
Stray observations:
- Last week, there was discussion in the comments regarding the teenage objectification evident in the Hooters-like establishment (which, of course, ties into various extratextual elements of the series, like photo shoots of innerwear as outerwear). Itâs a larger discussion than I have room for here, and it didnât tie into the above, but I think it raises questions of whether itâs okay for such objectification to function as characterization (see: âNipsâ) but not as an opportunity for a cheap joke at the expense of Canadian border officers.
- There were also calls last week for more analysis of the look of the show, and Iâd generally argue that the show isnât quite as interested in that as its UK counterpart. As noted, the ânowhereâ setting makes it more difficult to focus on urban architecture, so only episodes like âAbbudâ (which had some great use of space in the Canadian wilderness, which was allowed to be identified as Canadian) really delve into the world around them. Iâll be curious, though, to see how âEuraâ is rendered, given that characterâs particularly dream-like perspective on the world.
- I greatly appreciated two scenes within Tinaâs storyline. First, her attempt at grading Chrisâ paper on how he was going to bone her was a nice way of capturing the conflict between her actions and her position, and her inability to avoid circling âthrobingâ was wonderfully clever. I also thought that having her reveal her new status to her neighbor was a nice bit of neurosis and reinforced the âpermanenceâ of this event more clearly.
- Speaking of which, I spent the entire episode wondering where I had seen the actor playing her neighborâturns out it is Dillon Casey, who I remember most from his recurring role on Being Erica (a winning show I would recommend) and who has a history with Phillips, as they both appeared on CBCâs MVP (which I would not). And thus concludes "Talkin' Canadian TV with The A.V. Club's Token Canadian."
- To build off of what Todd suggested last week, in catching up with the show it became clear that this really is much more âgroundedâ in general. The loss of the whole incest storyline has left the show without an external force or antagonist, which has resulted in a more introspective take which has only occasionally been let down by performances (which are getting better across the board).
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