Skins series 2 in review

If you're a fan of "Skins," you probably noticed the lack of posts after the second season premiere. What happened was, I got several episodes behind, and would always get a few sentences into a multi-ep review post before I got sidetracked. Eventually, I decided to just wait until the season was over, especially since so many of the commenters were people who had seen the whole thing ahead of me. So, after the jump, some general thoughts on the final storylines for Tony, Sid, Chris and company...

I'd heard and read so many vague but ominous warnings about the direction of series 2 that my expectations were sufficiently lowered for me to enjoy most of it. But I can see where the complaints were coming from, as the show takes a turn into much more adult territory. That's not "adult" as in "adult content -- how much more adult could "Skins" get after the sexcapades of the first series? -- but as in the characters all started acting like adults. Parents either died, ran off, or proved themselves so oblivious that most of the kids had to grow up in a hurry and fend for themselves.

Between the abandonment issues, several tragedies (particularly the death of Chris) and the introduction of the very troubled Sketch (whose brief imprisonment of her ill mother saw the show veering into Stephen King territory), this was a much bleaker series than the first, with the carefree moments far less frequent and usually interrupted by another piece of bad news.

Now, there were times when all the misery felt like piling on -- the death of Sid's dad in particular triggered an "Oh, come on!" reaction -- but I thought it was all wonderfully played by the young ensemble. I thought Hannah Murray was especially great as this dark and bitter new incarnation of Cassie, and Joe Dempsie and Larissa Wilson made Chris and Jal's attempts to play house seem somehow fitting in this world.

But I'm glad that the producers chose to do two years and out with these characters, and to re-set with a new batch of kids a few years younger, using Tony's sister Effy as the bridge point. We all know how much trouble American teen dramas run into after the characters go off to college, and the change in tone and substance in "Skins" series 2 suggests that the writers were running out of material for this gang. Better to remember them as they were, for the most part, then to see them hang around past the point of being interesting.

What did everybody else think? And are you looking forward to the new Effy-centric incarnation of the show?