Most critics like Skins, and the praise clusters on the writing. Reviewers agree the dialogue sounds the way teenagers actually talk, mixing self-absorption with vulnerability, and several credit the show’s young writers for that. The decision to replace the cast every two series draws admiration for keeping the programme fresh, as does the habit of building each episode around a different character. Reviews written years after broadcast are warmer still, treating the series as the standard against which later teen dramas are measured.
The reservations gather around plot. The Guardian finds the characters as irritating as real teenagers and the storylines predictable, and also questions the largely middle-class casting. Collider calls it addictive but poorly plotted and implausible. The one outright negative notice, from Variety, sees shock value with no point of view underneath it. The spread is wide, from the low thirties to the nineties, and the American reviews are the coolest.