Skins
Why: This show had such a chokehold on my in my youth. I was a teenager that thought a lot of media towards teens was overly melodramatic, soapy, and oddly moralist in a way that you can tell it was written by middle aged people who can barely recall their youth and the more ill-informed and sketchy decisions they made during it. Shows like Gossip Girl, The OC, and (god forbid) Degrassi just weren't doing anything for me. Skins was honestly like nothing I'd seen before that was aimed at young adults at that point in time. It was interested in seeing teens not as caricatures but as fully fleshed out and multifaceted people. And it was relatable: They weren't stuffy teens from the upper east side that were always too good to throw house parties and opted more for acting like busybody socialites in their 30s, bores from Cali that set to safe commercial pop-rock music, or a rambunctious group of teens who, despite getting into some typical adolescent hijinks, are always able to do the right thing and have supportive people around them. Teens can be pretty childish. Sometimes with malicious intent and sometimes just because. And adolescence can be lonely. There will be times where things are rough and it seems like you have nobody even if you know that isn't true. Jamie and Bryan Elsey were really good at making characters that were exaggerated and out there enough to be entertaining to watch but viscerally vulnerable enough to seem very real/relatable and easy to care about at the same time and generation one was a great example of just that. Mostly I like how the characters seemed not like several stereotypical youthful caricatures of what teens were commonly perceived to be (by adults) but like multifaceted people with their own rich inner lives. The episodes were built around the telling of one character's life at one point in time with several intriguing plot points to push the show forward once their episode ends as a treat! I was so enamored with it... and excited at the idea of the cast getting swapped out every two seasons! The idea seemed innovative and I thought it'd be cool to see a new group of characters to grow to love once the first generation graduated. Especially since I had gotten so enamored with generation one!
...And then I started watching season 3.Characters: Tony, Cassie, (gen 1) Effy, Naomi
Couple: Naomily
Generation: One