Series 4 has been described by some as too depressing; suicide attempts, breakups, deaths, fighting and mental illness. I do agree that this was the case but then the show has always tried to push the envelope with certain subjects. To me, this series seem to wreck most of the good things they achieved in series 3. Pandora, Thomas, Emily and Naomi's relationships went south and each episode seemed to be about how bad things can get for the characters. The only person that had a happy episode was JJ. The whole series was disjointed at times and certain things just seem to come out of nothing, like Effy's mental illness. They had a real opportunity to do something great with the subject but her psychiatrist being obsessed with her and killing Freddie spoilt it. It seems like they are having a regular occurrence of one of the cast members dying, though Chris' death in series 2 didn't invoke the same kind of emotion.
My favourite episodes were the ones centred on Emily, Katie and Cook. With Pandora and Naomi not having centred episodes, I think they could have at least one of them share an episode with one of the others. I was however disappointed in how they developed Cook after his centred episode. It seemed like they were really trying to give him another dimension, when he took the fall for Naomi and also went to prison. Afterward, it didn't seem like it was worth going down that angle, when they had him escape and behave exactly the same as before.
Will Young's character seemed pointless and I don't think it served any purpose. Any of the other faculty members could have delivered the message to Freddie, that he was trying to, and seemed stupid doing it. Hugo Speer sold the part of Jon Foster even though I didn't like what they did with him. The main highlights of the supporting cast were the rest of the Fitches. The twins mother, Jenna (Ronni Ancona), father Rob (John Bishop) and younger brother, James (Redd Smith)
It will be interesting to see what route they take with the new cast and if they follow some of the same patterns like killing off one of the characters or having a one of the characters suffer something traumatic involving their brain (Tony losing his memory in series 2 and Effy's mental illness and suicide attempt).
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I agree entirely. There was so much oppurtunity for them to really create more depth in the characters and realistically show different aspects of their lives, but it was ruined by the writers' choice to turn everything into something dramatic. I was especially angered by Effy's episode, which somehow lowered the tone of Skins completely - it has lost a lot of it's credibility to those last five minutes. It was an interesting look into Effy struggling to cope with her mental illness, and it's as if the writers were tooo lazy to deal with the issue so they instead distracted from it by writing in a psychiatrist with an obsession with her and the murder of Freddie. It was ridiculous to say the least. I feel that the entire series was way too disjointed, and that they focused on unimportant things when they could have been focusing on character development, their relationships with each other and their everyday lives as a group. It's also true that it could have been much more lighthearted. Teenage life is a mixture of drama and comedy - even when a lot of shit's going on, we tend to make light of it because we don't know what else to do. This is something the characters in series 1 did, and it made a beautifully realistic and heartwarming portrayal of teenage life. I hope they return to that in Series 5.
ReplyDeleteI've almost written my own review, it's tempting to post it to my own blog!
Thanks for your comments. I do hope they have a better balance in series 5.
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