When Skins first exploded on the screens in 2007, there was something fresh about the project. Although excessive in its portrayal of teenage life, the fact that it was written by people who themselves were only just out of their own teenage lives gave the show an air of authenticity which made for riveting drama. After two seasons the show took the unusual step of dumping the original cast for a whole new set of characters, which made for a bumpy and uneven season three...

Skins: Series Four (2010) is where the new crew finally find their own feet and turn in a very watchable eight episodes. The format hasn’t changed, with each episode predominantly dealing with the life of a single character.

Series four is presented in a three disc DVD set and kicks off with the apparent suicide of a young girl high on drugs. The picture quality is fine as it should be as the show has only just stopped airing in the UK.

Episode one - Thomas. Although Effy is still absent, the group gather at Thomas’s club the night of the suicide, this single apparently random event is to have far reaching consequences for nearly all of them. Thomas suspects that Cook sold the girl the drugs. With the tragedy latterly placed at his front door Thomas starts to question everything about his life and in his confusion, fights with Cook and cheats on Pandora.

The episode also introduces a new character in the form of the ever so slightly mad David Blood (Chris Addison) who is played as a combination of an English Grotesque and a barely contained madman. In this series his zero toleration policy will see both Thomas and Cook expelled. The episode works well as a showcase for Merveille Lukeba (Thomas) as he struggles with his and his friends moral ambiguities. Pauline Quirke makes her first appearance as the police woman investigating Sophie’s Death.

Episode two - Emily and the action transfers to Emily and her relationship with Naomi. Emily discovers that it was Naomi who sold Sophie the drugs and although she initially denies it she eventually admits that she had known Sophie, slightly.

The episode is all about trust and relationships, the way that your exposure to others can lead to hurt and what can you do about it? With Effy’s return, and her return to Freddie, Cook finally looses it and attacks a stranger at a party This Episode has two of the strongest performers together in the form of Katheryn Prescott (Emily) and Jack O’Connell (Cook), Katheryn plays up to her character's quirky nature perfectly and her elfin looks belie the power of some of her performances. O’Connell is quickly becoming one of the few of the cast capable of producing a stand out performance and the story of his fall from grace and potential redemption will take up much of the second half of the series.

Episode three - Cook, and he is looking at going to prison for GBH, through a series of events Cook decides that given the amount of trouble he is already in and the effect his behaviour is having on his younger brother that he will take the fall for Naomi. He tells the police that he supplied Sophie with the MDMA and is sentenced to prison.

Episode four and the show diverges a little with ‘Katy’ who discovers that she is suffering from premature menopause and so can never have children, something that she admits to Thomas, literally in the heat of the moment. It’s an okay episode but this and JJ’s story in episode six are only short breathers before the series’s climactic ending.

Episodes five Freddie, seven Effy and eight Everybody build up to the show's climatic ending. With Effy back, and back with Freddie, things soon start to unravel as Effy’s mental health declines. Although admitted to a mental hospital, her psychiatrist's unconventional methods bring the good doctor and Freddie into conflict. Suffice it to say at the end of series four one major character is dead and one minor one looks like he is going the same way.

The discs contain a number of full length commentaries for selected episodes. "Great" I hear you cry. Well, yes and no, because the way the menu is set out these are undiscoverable unless you choose to select individual episodes, choose the ‘play all’ option and you might never even know they exist. On disc one there is a commentary for Eps 1 Thomas. Disc two has one for eps 4 Katie and three has one for eps seven Effy, at this point we have to ask, what happened to the Pandora episode, poor girl always gets to play second fiddle with no episode of her own.

The third disc also boast a number of extras, which kick off with Skins Shorts which to my mind look more like nine pieces of deleted material, some of which isn’t bad, in a watch once sort of way. You also get a ‘behind the scenes' which consist of another eight little pieces which tie into each of the eight shows and lastly there are a whole bunch of trailers for the shows you’ve just watched.

The series, overall, starts strong, dips a little in the middle before pulling off a strong if a bit unbelievable finish. We look forward to series five.

8

Charles Packer