Skins

The realism doesn't extend to the exaggerated characters and plots, but if you focus on the sharp dialogue (and aren't an easily worried parent), these students earn a solid ... B.

So, to sum up: decadent and adult, but too entertaining to be this week's harbinger of the apocalypse.

I nearly wrote off Skins after the first episode. But as it continued--I've now seen three, the first two of which will air back-to-back on Sunday--I found some of the characters, including a dreamy anorexic named Cassie (Hannah Murray), starting to get under my own skin.

It's all elevated by looking really beautiful (though not -- and this is the crucial difference -- stylish). The pictures fill in the blanks, and even as Skins strains credibility, it achieves moments of poetry.

The show is subtitled, which helps viewers understand the thick accents and British slang, but the whole thing is a bit nihilistic and the characters come across as somewhat debased.

The glimpses of old-fashioned heart in Sid’s story, and the characters’ deadpan humor, make this show a mildly intriguing chronicle of youth.

Despite fine elements, then, the show feels a trifle rudderless--content to deal in edgy high-school archetypes (a gay kid, an irreverent Muslim youth, even one boy with a "Dawson's"-like crush on his teacher), but archetypes nevertheless.

This show is good until it isn't, then it's really bad. One of the worst tv show experiences I've ever had.