Looking ahead to Skins series 6

It's safe to say that last year's fresh crop of troublesome teens wasn’t received as well as E4, Jamie Brittain, or the fresh-faced young actors joining the cast would have hoped. The year before, Skins had lost its only original star in Kaya Scodelario, and the slate was wiped clean for the influential E4 show to shine again. The trouble was, with was no guiding force to its fifth series and the departure of showrunner Bryan Elsley, the show lost its way.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'll tell you that the first series of Skins emerged on our screens just as this writer was entering college, and the show became a kind of forbidden bible to those limbo years between childhood and young adulthood.

Let's face it, no one’s life has ever been or ever will be like that of these characters, and the show had a wish-fulfilment quality that was rare on British screens at the time. I connected with Skins in a way I couldn't with many mainstream programs, and have a soft spot for it that can't be easily wiped away.

That said, series five was not its strongest run of episodes, and some of what had made the show so special seemed to have been lost in translation. It has its fans, of course, and the show as a whole will always have vocal detractors, but things just weren't sitting right.

So adept are the writers at communicating the teenage mentality, its appeal was always going to be limited, but I am of the belief that good shows can be understood by anyone, and Skins is known to approach genius when at its best.

So now, with the sixth series imminently starting on E4, it's useful to take stock and find hope for the flashes of greatness to be taken, considered and capitalised on this coming year.

While none of last year's individual episodes can be considered as strong as series one's Cassie, or season two's Sid, there was much to enjoy in new characters Mini and Frankie, who were notably different from those we had followed before, and so offered a new perspective on the often painful teenage experience.

Sadly, this year's premiere shows all the signs of mistakes repeating themselves. Not only does most of the episode take place on the kind of holiday no self-respecting parent would let their 17-year-old go on (aren't Alo's parents, for example, really protective?), but the same lack of focus that plagued last year's stories is present and correct.

Skins has always worked better when focusing on one character a week, delving right into their psyche, so why start with a group shindig that barely scratches anyone's surface?

The last episode that really held on to the DNA of Skins was, arguably, going all the way back to this time last year. Introducing one of the most complex characters to grace the series, Frankie was a dark and troubling tale of an androgynous girl refusing to adhere to the mean girls’ criteria. As the year went on, Frankie became less and less resistant to their seductive ways, and Dakota Blue Richards emerges here with a face full of make-up and a low-cut top. If the writers don't know the people they've created inside and out, then why should we care about them?

The episode's narrative structure poses even more problems, and unfortunately, not too much can be revealed for fear of spoilers. There are some major shifts in the dynamic of the gang from the get-go, but not all are as believable as they could have been.

Skins has always delved in fantasy, sometimes using obvious genre trickery in order to portray someone's inner state of mind, but it always had a point. When the show exercises this license for nothing but visual gain or provocatively bonkers storylines, it's in danger of alienating its fans for good. The show will always have young viewers, but they aren't the ones who keep it afloat.

It's a shame to be writing this negative reaction, but I genuinely believe that the show, even with its current cast, writers, and plot lines, can do far better than it is, and they have a whole new series to prove it to us.

There were great elements to last year's overall storylines and character arcs, and the writers have always been good at paying attention to their audience. It's hard to care about the characters if they're not believable people, and many of this third generation are so thinly drawn as to float away.

The premiere repeats a lot of the same problems as last year, but the past has taught us to be patient. New characters and dramatic storylines bode well for the series, and it's far too early to write this troublesome group of students off just yet.