In the past five years, television for UK teenagers about UK teenagers has existed with a quantity and quality like never before. This isn’t to say that alongside endless repeats of Come Dine With Me the schedules are now chock-a-block with comedies and dramas about modern British youths smoking, shagging, and stealing. But whereas there used to be no programmes that showed teenagers speaking and acting as they actually would, now there are three hugely popular shows that get somewhere close to doing that: the world conquering Skins; the slow-burner to monster hit comedy The Inbetweeners; and the sci-fi, ASBO melding Misfits. (Although that’s perhaps more ‘early twenties’ rather than ‘teenage’.) All three shows are on E4. That channel is the only place that has been able to produce programmes that portray the actions and language of British teenagers to any sort of realistic degree. Ever since the massive success of Skins launched this current TV trend BBC3 has made a few attempts to replicate it but their rather more sanitised versions have always proved ultimately crap and forgettable.
Yet that’s not to say Skins itself isn’t crap. Let’s not get carried away here with the praise. Skins is crap. Or at least the second-generation seasons are crap. Mainly because most of the characters and storylines were dull and tedious but also because the show turned into a thirteen year-old’s wet dream of what life at sixteen is like. It was as if they were going through an overloaded check-list of everything young adolescents think is cool about being an older teenager. But that’s fair enough, Skins is mainly for 13 to 15 year olds. They’re the only ones who watch the show and think it’s an utterly realistic depiction of teenage life. It’s not obviously. It’s an embellished and dramatised account. The original generation episodes were just better at the drama bit.
Those first seasons were of a higher quality than what followed. (Though obviously that’s not saying much.) Especially the second as the young actors who were fairly useless at the very start improved with practice, and overall the writing in both season one and two was decent to strong, and most importantly of all, very British. Plus, Nicolas Hoult’s Tony was a multi-layered, malevolent individual that you would never expect to be the central character in an American teenage drama. Which makes you wonder how MTV have handled the remake.
It would be very hard to imagine The Inbetweeners being remade in the US. That really is very, very British and ironically, even though it’s a straight-up comedy and the language is exaggerated for laughs, the characters speak in a more realistic way than those in Skins. Plus, adolescents who lead relatively drama-free lives that try to sneak into house parties that they haven’t been invited to and lie about all the sex they’ve had when they haven’t had any, are probably more recognisable to the majority of teens watching these shows than that drug-fuelled, over-sexed, crisis-engulfed group of young’uns from Bristol. Yet, that’s not to say that The Inbetweeners is any less entertaining. In fact, it’s more entertaining because the detailing of teenage idiosyncrasies and failures is so bang-on, which is what makes the show just so goddamn funny. Except the third season, where the writers got lost in their own success and forced the extremities of the language too far for it to work in the hilariously realistic way it originally did.
Misfits is in the stronger position than the other two series by being only one and a bit seasons old, so has not yet stagnated. Commonly referred to as ‘Skins meets Heroes’ it was the surprise but deserved winner of the television BAFTA for best drama last year. Critical recognition of the type that you imagine the producers of Skins, in the words of Peep Show’s Mark Corrigan, ‘would literally stab a baby’ for. They would never get anywhere near it though whilst the brilliant writing, stylish direction and photography, and most of all, far superior acting of Misfits is around. The series’ effortless coolness makes the desperate-to-be-trendy Skins look like it’s trying too hard. It is ironic that a show about youths with super powers paints a far more true to life and in depth picture of young people in Britain today than the supposedly reality based sixth-form drama. However, to be fair to the other two shows, the characters in Misfits are slightly older which allows the series to have a darker tone.
Even if Misfits is the best programme of the three, what if characters from each of these shows found themselves together at that most teenage of situations, a house party, then who would win in a teenage-off?
Get the biggest reaction to a party-trick in the kitchen: Young people often get over-excited when they start drinking and taking drugs at house parties. There’s always someone who thinks they’re a bit of a joker and constantly tries to win the acceptance of their peers through their crazy-ass japes. At a house party, the kitchen is the perfect place to perform such show-off pranks. There’s no music and before the party has got going people go in there to cluster in little groups before the alcohol and drugs start kicking in. A kitchen party trick then is the best way to break the ice and get the party started.
Who’s up: Nathan Misfit v Neil Inbetweener v Chris Skins
Chris is one of those guys who think that focusing their personality around being more fucked than everyone else all the time makes them ridiculously entertaining. But gurning in people’s faces isn’t much of a party trick and people are just ignoring him in the hope he’ll go away. It is only half past nine and the rest of the party are still pretty sober. No win for Skins here then. Neil’s party trick is obviously the robot dance. It is obviously shit and not at all funny. The crowd in the kitchen politely give him a couple of seconds then turn their attention to Nathan who is wielding a large kitchen knife. He stabs himself with it repeatedly, splattering the kitchen in blood. Everyone screams like they never have or will before and are traumatised for life. After dying for a few moments Nathan shocks everyone by coming back to life. Everyone screams again. Louder. Easily the biggest reaction. The power of immortality is perhaps an unfair advantage in this contest.
Verdict: Nathan Misfit wins!
Score: Misfits 1; The Inbetweeners 0; Skins 0
Have sex in parents’ bedroom: Kids get drunk. Kids get horny. Some lucky kids hook up and awkwardly lose their virginity in the bedroom of parents who misguidedly didn’t lock their door because they mistakenly believed their daughter went along a more ‘genteel’ crowd and was too nice to have a house party when the went away for the weekend. Other kids go home and have a lonely wank, wondering when it’ll be their turn.
Who’s up: Alisha Misfit v Will Inbetweener v Tony Skins
Will is out of this one straight away. He unbelievably gets up to the bedroom with the Charlotte, the lust of his life but then does something really straight laced, says something really geeky, then pulls a funny face. Oh my! How cringeworthingly hilarious he is! But no sex so no teenage points. The cast of Skins are just shagging each other all over the house cos they’re just really cool like that, yeah? Only, although they’re going for it in the conservatory, and in the hallway, and on the stairs, and under the stairs, and on top of the television, and in the kitchen sink etc., they’re not doing it in the parents’ bedroom. Sex in a bedroom?! No way grandma! They’re way too cool for that. However, pheromone excessive Alisha eyes ice-cool heartthrob Tony and intentionally brushes past him on the landing. Her super-power of ‘touch me then want to fuck me’ causes him to bundle her into the bedroom. Will stands outside the door asking, ‘Isn’t that a bit rapey?’
Verdict: Alisha Misfit and Tony Skins draw.
Score: Misfits 2; The Inbetweeners 0; Skins 1
Steal Stuff: It’s not big, it’s not clever, and it’s not nice. But before they’re old enough to know that the only stealing allowed at house parties is the sly sweeping of other people’s booze, teenagers always nick stuff. Normally at the end of the night, and normally either stupid stuff taken as prizes, like spatulas; stuff they sort of want, like CDs; or, most commonly of all, the holy grail for a teenage boy thief at a party – the dad of the household’s porn collection. (Though clearly this is a harder treasure to come by in the Internet age.)
Who’s up: Simon Misfit v Jay Inbetweener v Cook Skins
Jay gets off to a good start here, pocketing some ornaments from a shelf. Just little things that when he shows his mates once they leave will seem stupidly funny in that way that only can to very drunk people. However, the girl whose party it is catches him taking a pair of her knickers from the washing machine and then shouts to all her fit friends about what a ‘massive pervert’ and ‘fucking creep’ Jay is. Embarrassed, he silently scuttles off home. Cook meanwhile is too busy being all Liam Gallagher style northern and fighty in the living room to bother nicking anything. So it’s down to quiet Simon to try and grab a better loot than Jay. He’s not really one to steal but desperate to impress his fellow young offenders and egged on by Nathan he goes in search of funny shit. Using his power of invisibility he rifles through the dad’s study and…SCORE! Hidden in a suspiciously overtly dull and work-like folder is his porn collection! Ultimate treasure trove!
Verdict: Simon Misfit wins! (Bonus point for dad’s porn.)
Score: Misfits 4; The Inbetweeners 0; Skins 1
Throw up and pass-out in bathroom with the door locked causing a couple of drunk mates to overzealously kick it down while the girl whose party it is stands on the landing screaming, then get thrown out of the house, still unconscious, chin and t-shirt covered in sick: Always happens to some unlucky bastard.
Who’s up: Kelly Misfit v Simon Inbetweener v Anwar Skins
This one is a no-brainer. The Misfits are all too cool to be the laughing stock of a party and Anwar isn’t even there. He’s in Hollywood bending some element or other. This is classic Inbetweeners stuff. Showing the embarrassing side of teenage life. And that’s why we love ‘em.
Verdict: Simon Inbetweener wins!
Score: Misfits 4; The Inbetweeners 1; Skins 1
It’s too little too late from The Inbetweeners, so Misfits grab a resounding victory thanks to their superpowers. Unequivocal proof that theirs is the best teenage telly programme in the country. If not the best TV show of any sort in the whole world. For the next month or so anyway.
The second season of Misfits airs on e4 every Thursday at 10pm
