Skins 2:2 (Spoilers)

“Sketch”

Ok I’m convinced. This episode’s sheer weirdness and willingness to go down some very dark corridors and stay there made it entirely worthwhile. Enter new character Sketch – female carer to a disabled single mother, living in a deluded fantasy world where she and Maxxie are in love with each other. Maxxie of course doesn’t know this. Sketch sees her way in via new school play Osama: The Musical, and even Michelle’s role as lead opposite Maxxie can’t stop her…

Wisely even though the episode is about Sketch, Maxxie again steals the show. Hewer’s three butt shots have already escaped into every tabloid magazine in the country, and this time his acting held up against the impressive body. His gradual realisation of Sketch’s obsession, and his final response to it worked out very well. The dark humour of Sketch and Anwar’s closing sex session also counterbalanced the real darkness of Sketch’s abuse of her mother quite nicely. The gang all know she’s nuts, but she’s successfully inveigling herself into their lives anyway. Great drama – not so good for Maxxie, or Michelle, if this episode is anything to go by.

It was a bit overly dark in patches, but found some good moments which punctured it – Bill Bailey’s dog above all. Priceless. I’m going to keep watching I think.

Skins 2:1 (Spoilers)

“Tony and Maxxie”

I missed series 1. I’m not sure I even noticed it, but leads Nicholas Hoult and Mitch Hewer grabbed my attention quite strongly before the E4 launch of series 2. Hoult was the boy in ‘About a Boy’, and very good he was too. Hewer’s topless dancing promos would probably get the attention of castrated monks; I had to check this out.

And despite some remarkable casting (Bill Bailey and Harry Enfield as their fathers), I’m left not wholly sure what the fuss is about. It’s nice television but not exactly compelling. Hoult isn’t as good as an adult as he was as a boy, and Hewer’s features outshine his acting ability too. What stands out though is his character – an extremely good looking and confidently gay teenager on an estate. The other characters are laden with issues and conflicts, but Maxxie’s pretty well adjusted. This is unusual for British telly still – although it was pioneered by Russell T Davies in Queer as Folk a decade ago. Ten years later, even though such a character remains an exception to the rule in TV drama, the matter-of-factness of the character is refreshing, if not anywhere near as exciting. Although Maxxie is at the heart of the drama, I’m not at this stage sure he or anyone else is interesting enough to justify following this.

But I said that last year about Torchwood and look where we are now, and look just how good a straight actor Bill Bailey turned out to be…