[Artemis]

Okay, I need to rewatch to really review, but, omg, I got sucked in. I started Skins this weekend. It's insane.

I'm American, and we don't have shows like this, unless it's HBO and Showtime, and since I'm like obsessed with Gossip Girl, I was incredibly SHOCKED. So vulgar and sexual! I love it. We need more shows like this. LMAO.

[smoothaise]

^ Amen, sistah! I'm from the US, too.

[frodobaggins07]

Tony's Dad: You take me for a right James Blunt, don't you?

[smoothaise]

I still don't know what that means. I assumed he meant "moron" but I don't get why.

[lisztomania]

I think James Blunt was nominated for being the "most annoying" singer or something. Maybe that's got to do with something?

[luiza]

I just love the first episode.. may be the best episode in season 1.. A banner of it:

[s e r e n i t y]

I just downloaded this episode last night and watched it and wow, its unlike anything Ive ever seen before Much much more sex than Im used to, and extremely addictive
I was a bit shocked at the episode at first but when I got over that I started to like it, especially Sid and Cassie

[ride the lightning]

Sid & Cassie are adorable in this episode I love how the car rolls into the lake

[lisztomania]

i agree about the initial shock that comes with the pilot. everybody i introduce the series to had the same reaction. from shock to pleasure to pure fascination.

[Finnegan]

Tony: I say this world extends way beyond this little field of dreams we're dancing in, and I want to see that world. Chris: What the ****'s he on about? Jal: He's quoting Chris, it's a literary reference. Chris: What, you mean like Shakespeare or ****? Jal: Dawson's Creek. -- Skins (UK), series 1, episode 1, "Tony"

Question: Is Tony's line in bold, above, really from the dialogue of Dawson's Creek? I can't find any evidence that it is. And if not, this dialogue from the start of Skins seems to compare DC to the movie, Field of Dreams, doesn't it?,

Why I ask:

This dialogue is brilliantly ironic -- acknowledging Skins' debt to Dawson's Creek while at the same time promising to offer a less dreamy, more realistic, variation.

Except, of course, that one could argue that Skins is even dreamier than DC.

Tony's being"hit by a bus" as a metaphor for his saying, and meaning, "I love you" for the first time, after having seen sex chiefly as a way to play power games to relieve boredom, is innovative, but a blatant departure from realism, no? Being "hit by a bus" as a metaphor for falling in love for the first time so so crude that it can only be deliberate. And if it's metaphorical, then, it's all rather dreamy, no?

In fact, doesn't all of season 2 turn rather dreamily idealistic, as all the kids grow into better people by learning to love? And, of course, all of season 2, episode 6, is a surrealistic dream sequence, a variation on the Orpheus and Eurydice tale with which it opens. The episode with that other great non-quotation, "A short walk in the light of the world with breaks for coffee and snacks."

All of which, if anticipated at the start, in series 1 episode 1, makes the opening irony self-directed, and even richer, no? Maybe a statement that greater realism can, if done right, make love dramas dreamier?

[lisztomania]

no, i don't think it's a dc reference. jal might have been just sarcastic. someone made some sort of explanation of it here:

INNER TOOB: DAWSON'S ZONK

[Finnegan]

Originally Posted by lisztomania (View Post) no, i don't think it's a dc reference. jal might have been just sarcastic. someone made some sort of explanation of it here: INNER TOOB: DAWSON'S ZONK

Thanks, Lisztomania. I'd seen the explanation you cite, but find it unsatisfactory.

It's nice to know, though, that I'm not alone in doubting very much that Tony's line in Skins s1e1, said by Jal to be quoting Dawson's Creek, is really from Dawson's Creek. In that scene, I think not only are Tony and Jal toying with Chris, but also the scriptwriters of Skins are toying with the show's viewers in the same deliberately ironic way.

Skins, in s1 and s2, seems to evolve from the ostensibly realistic but in fact surrealistically gross (hence the s1e1 shot of Tony reading Sartre's Nausea in the loo) to the sublime -- the final episodes of s2 are morally edifying, emotionally uplifting. That's because the characters, in particular Tony, grow morally and emotionally. Tony starts out bored by the task of living a decent, loving life, and the show pretends to do that, too. But Tony changes for the better, and the tenor of the show changes with him -- he ends up finding that task intellectually engaging and worthwhile.

Assuming that evolution is intended from the outset, much in the early episodes of s1 is ironic -- including the tongue-in-cheek comparison of Dawson's Creek to Field of Dreams. Skins starts out ostensibly scoffing at DC for being too dreamy, too morally idealistic, too much like Field of Dreams, but develops into something even dreamier and more idealistic than DC -- including, in s2e6, a whole dream episode.

One can't see the irony in Skins s1 until one has watched s2. Moreover, that irony is so artful that most teen viewers are unlikely to perceive it at all. Skins is marketed chiefly to people like Chris, but it's written by people as bright and educated and morally exigent as Jal is, for people as bright and educated and in need of moral edfication as Tony is.

Why drama so good and so artful is marketed to a teen mass-market audience that mostly can't possibly understand it eludes me. Skins isn't the only "teen" show like that, either: Steven Antin's Young Americans (aired on The WB in summer 2000 as a summer fill-in for DC) is like that, too. It all reminds me of fairy tales. When you revisit them as an adult, you see so much in them you missed as a child -- but they're ostensibly for children, although they have to interest adults to survive.

[lisztomania]

Originally Posted by Finnegan (View Post) Thanks, Lisztomania. I'd seen the explanation you cite, but find it unsatisfactory.

no problem. you can call me nia btw. me, too. it's still pure speculation but i really can't recall any lines similar to it in DC and bryan/jamie have yet to say anything about it. maybe if we ask them about it on twitter?

Originally Posted by Finnegan (View Post) One can't see the irony in Skins s1 until one has watched s2. Moreover, that irony is so artful that most teen viewers are unlikely to perceive it at all. Skins is marketed chiefly to people like Chris, but it's written by people as bright and educated and morally exigent as Jal is, for people as bright and educated and in need of moral edfication as Tony is. Why drama so good and so artful is marketed to a teen mass-market audience that mostly can't possibly understand it eludes me. Skins isn't the only "teen" show like that, either: Steven Antin's Young Americans (aired on The WB in summer 2000 as a summer fill-in for DC) is like that, too. It all reminds me of fairy tales. When you revisit them as an adult, you see so much in them you missed as a child -- but they're ostensibly for children, although they have to interest adults to survive.

i'd like to think that skins was marketed for both, actually. because the show does exude a bit of both. it can be stupid in an entertaining way at times and very brilliant and complex at times.

[Finnegan]

Originally Posted by lisztomania (View Post) i really can't recall any lines similar to it in DC and bryan/jamie have yet to say anything about it. maybe if we ask them about it on twitter?

Thanks, Nia. I don't tweet. However, I found a site with all the DC scripts on it today, here and here.

A Google site search of that website yields only one hit for the phrase, "field of dreams," namely this from season 2, episode 6, "All Nighter:"

Dawson: What good is wallowing? All the wallowing in the world doesn't bring somebody back. ... Advantages? Gail: Sure, like allowing yourself to stuff your face with a lifetime supply of red licorice and doughnuts, or a newfound appreciation for country music. Dawson: Like an excuse to watch the last scene from Field of Dreams?

That's not much like Tony Stonem's remark (posted below on this thread) in series 1, episode 1 of Skins, that Jal Fazer says is a quote from Dawson's Creek. So absent information to the contrary, I tentatively conclude that Jal's attribution of Tony's remark to DC is spurious -- and deliberately ironic. I think Jaimie Brittain is signalling that he's messing with our heads, much as Jal is messing with Chris' head, in alluding to Dawson's Creek.

Originally Posted by lisztomania (View Post) i'd like to think that skins was marketed for both, actually. because the show does exude a bit of both. it can be stupid in an entertaining way at times and very brilliant and complex at times.

Indeed. I'm just amazed that some scriptwriters, like Brittain in Skins or Antin in Young Americans, seem to develop, with artfulness that must take a lot of work, a whole level of meaning that seems likely to elude the ostensible target audience. There's no commercial payoff to that, and the people who appreciate that kind of thing not only tend not to watch teen TV romances, they tend not to take seriously anything in teen TV romances. But both Brittain and Antin, in these shows, seem to be reliving their own youths is some way ... maybe their writing in that other level of meaning chiefly for themselves, because they're kinda bored ... like Tony is.

[lisztomania]

i'm not entirely sure about JB reliving it through tony because he specifically said he was a sid but that he knew a tony.