By Chris Ryall
July 29, 2003
Talk about soft porn. Up until this season, Jerry Bruckeimer's foray into televion has gone relatively smoothly -- CSI and its spin-off are critical and fan favorites for CBS. But Fox being Fox would require something a bit more salacious for their audience than some police procedural, so Jerry had to stretch a bit. No, Fox would require some skin. Which is why they now have SKIN. Clever, no?
No. The short description of the show, its "log line," if you will, is "Romeo and Juliet set in in the world of adult films." Except, instead of the Capulets and the Montagues, we get the Goldmans and the Roames. Yep, it's obvious right from the family surnames that this is no Shakespeare.
SKIN revolves around two teenagers growing up in different yet both priveleged areas of Los Angeles. Of course, it's "TV Los Angeles," where rooftop parties at clubs are so accessible to the beautiful people that one of the party-goers can park his Porsche on the curb outside the nightspot (anyone in L.A. knows there's not one valet- or parking meter-free curbside parking spot in the entire city). At this party, said Porsche driver is trying to slip his girlfriend some "e." She's not that kind of girl, however. Instead, our girl Jewel (Olivia Wilde), tho' her father be the biggest pornographer in town, is a good girl. Good enough to get sassy and throw the guy's keys into the rooftop pool and then dive in after them, only to toss them over the edge of the building (sounds like a DOG EAT DOG stunt).
While in the pool, others dive in after her and one guy, a sensitive Latino (well, Mexican-Irish, as he explains later) sort named Adam (D.J. Cotrona) , he dives in to see if she's okay. Their chlorine-clogged eyes meet under water, and suddenly we have our Romeo and Juliet.
Blowing out of this party, they make a connection and stay up late talking. Jewel returns home and her Jewish parents are fine with the late arrival--she's a "good girl," her dad (Ron Silver) states, even though daddy is a billionaire porno king.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the still-nice tracks, Adam returns home to his strict Irish-Mexican Catholic household and is scolded by his mother and father, a judge and the city's district attorney, respectively. His dad has high standards for Adam, standards our petulant (but sensitive, remember) Adam can never hope to attain, and staying up late with a girl just...well, it won't do. Instead, he'll enforce his overly patriarchal will on his teenage son and make this stop. And you know how hormonal teenagers respond to being told not to see the opposite sex, right?
Is the conflict blatant enough for you yet? Opposing religions, opposing career choices, opposing philsophies...yep, their parents are born to hate each other. And they come to hate each other even more after Jewel's dad is suspected of ultimately fronting a child-porn site that led to a death or some such nonsense. See, he owns a bunch of porn Web sites, too (so HE'S to blame for all the endless pop-up ads!) and one of them was sub-leased by some child pornographers and...well, bad things happened. Things which the D.A. is determined to put a STOP to, of course, and that means taking down the big man himself.
The two fathers realize that they're diametrically opposed, and not just that, but since they're both public figures, it just won't do to see these two mortal enemies' offspring carousing together. So both parents FORBID their kids to see the other kid, setting up our pat "us against the world" premise. Oh, good. Because teenagers aren't insufferable enough most of the time on TV shows, but now you'll have the petulant "but I LOVE him/her!" arguments each week, too.
"SKIN is about sex and race. SKIN is about politics. And most of all SKIN is about skin: complexion, beauty, desire, attraction, obsession, and prejudice in contemporary Los Angeles. SKIN is shot through with black comedy, passion, white-collar crime, scandal, naked ambition, and action." That's the official word on the show. To me, the set-up was just another limp premise, glossy and showy and yet ultimately empty. Much like a real porn site! At least they got that much right. But Viagra couldn't get me excited about seeing more SKIN.
Fox's SKIN airs this Fall on Mondays at 9:00 PM.
Next Week: Fox's THE O.C.
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