Last week's TV - the inthenews.co.uk view
Billie Piper returned to TV screens as escort Belle de Jour
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By Tom Powell. |  |
Monday, 01, Feb 2010 12:18
It is finally over. After a month of antics Celebrity Big Brother came to end on Friday, kicking off the final year of Big Brother on our TV screens - (or at least Channel 4 for the foreseeable future).
I have to say, I was not at all sad to see it come to end, nor will I be when the curtain falls at the end of the final series this summer. To begin with, it was groundbreaking, but please let's now get back to what made Channel 4 great to begin with - provocative, exciting and alternative programming. Thankfully E4 is more than fulfilling that quota in the interim.
It was therefore great to see Skins back on our screens last Thursday. Many critics may knock Skins for creating an idealised, unreachable world which its teenage viewers may feel pressured to replicate, only to realise it is impossible to be as cool as Effy and co, but Skins is a great British show. True it is not The Inbetweeners, which with its nervous sex-obsessed males, is arguably more in tune with the realities of teenage life, but Skins doesn't pretend to be anything like its fellow E4 counterpart. It is bold in its storytelling, not afraid to tackle serious issues, whilst portraying authentic club scenes and credible interaction between teens' and the bewildering adult world.
The opener to series four was no different. It followed Thomas, who was criminally underused last year - he challenged Mackenzie Cook to a chilli eating contest and hooked up with the ditzy Pandora but that was about it.
This time we saw Thomas wrestle with his conscience over the death of a girl who had overdosed on drugs during a club night he helps to run. Nothing though was as it seemed, least of all when Pauline Quirke turned up to investigate, I found myself questioning - Am I still watching Skins?
Throughout the hour Thomas moped around looking deeply troubled. The root of his agony appeared to be the conflict between his deeply religious family and his other world of clubbing and teenage debauchery. It was conflict rarely portrayed on Skins which was told with heart however like all teen dramas, Thomas' troubles did not end there. His relationship with Pandora ended promptly after he copped off with his pastor's daughter in the hospital laundry room though. It was all part of his self-revaluation of his life, but sadly he was later expelled from school and got speedily drunk and ended up in a fight with resident bad boy Cook.
Chris Addison was brilliant as the new head teacher at Roundview, who appeared David Cameron-like in his welcoming speech in which he promised to expunge any miscreants. The line of the episode though goes to Thomas' sister Fumi: "Obi-Wan is like God, but with better weapons". With engaging characters, great music and quality writing Skins is back with a bang and still on mighty top form.
You may not like Secret Diary of a Call Girl, but you have to agree it is a darn sight better than Material Girl. Yes, Billie Piper is indeed back as Hannah, aka Belle de Jour, the high class prostitute in a third series of the ITV2 drama. Throughout the opening two episodes Belle spent most of her time swanning through hotel corridors, shagging the good, the bad and the hairy over-enthusiastic humpers.
This time around Belle is now a critically-acclaimed author, a nice tie in to the fictional reality behind the show. There were spectacularly flirty scenes between her and her publicist, who she beds in this week's episode along with notable fourth wall-breaking to capture the viewers attention.
The show is decidedly more sexed up than last run - Piper was pregnant during the filming of the last run - but it's far from being the British Sex and the City the writers want it to be. It's fluffy, glamorous light television complete with prolific pouting.
Matt Robinson