Jasmine Sahu is well suited with this new American drama exclusive to Dave.
Lois Cameron explains why this series is much more than your average cosy period drama.
The last episode of this series sees Sherlock and Moriarty attempt to solve the final problem with devastating consequences.
With major cast changes afoot, Jacob Martin ponders whether Being Human can live up to its own scarily high standard.
In the fourth episode of the fifth series of Skins, we’re provided with some insight into the character of Liv. However, the most interesting aspect of it is that we get some answers surrounding Matty, who has been relatively mysterious so far. Whilst it was certainly not as well-rounded an episode as I would’ve hoped for, upon reflection, it’s probably a decent improvement over the last two offerings. There were some significant revelations, and whilst I liked learning some of the show’s secrets, I didn’t particularly enjoy the contrivances that were taken to get to them.
The episode begins with the two fairly disparate social groups all ending up rather friendly and hanging out at Liv’s house (how this happened I do not know), they all take drugs and get high whilst Liv deals with problems at home, mostly communication issues between her family members. Somehow, when she’s out and about, Liv bumps into Matty. The vast majority of the hour from then on is spent focussing on their interactions together as they spend the day on a crazy drugs trip, that was, at times, fairly reminiscent of the earlier series’ of Skins.
The big reveal of the episode comes when Liv and Matty (after, inevitably, having sex) return to the party. When the two of them go up to Liv’s bedroom to find Nick and Mini sharing the bed, we discover that Nick and Matty are brothers. I thought that was a fairly clever twist, and that it should shake things up enough to remain interesting going forward. The rest of the episode is basically Liv downing silly amounts of vodka as an attempt to prove how much she loves various people. After she somehow doesn’t die, she returns home and (sort of) reconnects with her mother.
I thought that both the setup and most of the drama in ‘Liv’ was quite contrived, and that the actions of most of the characters are still quite hard to understand or believe. Even if I can’t help but think that the acting is quite poor, there was a slight improvement in this episode from the quality of the previous two. I have never in the past watched Skins and expected it to reflect reality, but there has usually been at least some semblance of rationality to way the plot moves and the way the characters act, that’s quite obviously missing from series 5.
I’m really trying my hardest to enjoy the fifth series of Skins, but I’m finding it increasingly difficult to appreciate the quality of episodes that they’ve been churning out. Only the very first one, ‘Franky,’ did I find genuinely engaging. Next week’s episode is all about Nick, who we know plays a lot of rugby, has slept with both his girlfriend Mini and Liv and has a enigmatic brother (Matty). The trailer certainly looks interesting, but I’m not getting too excited based on the quality of what we’ve seen so far this series.
Skins airs on E4 at 10pm on Thursdays
You must log in to submit a comment.
