Reception
On May 30, 2003 Bruce Fretts of Entertainment Weekly picked Skin as one of the most promising new series for the 2003-04 U.S. television season. Fretts said that redoing Romeo and Juliet in a modern setting was nothing new but that having Romeo's father be a district attorney going after Juliet's porn-king father was original enough that "methinks Shakespeare would approve."
Robert Bianco of USA Today said, "Skin traps a 21st-century Romeo and Juliet between two dirty worlds: politics and porn. Throw in race, religion and economic disparity, and you have enough problems to keep a soap busy for decades.... Yet there's nothing salacious or pornographic about the show itself, which by current standards is relatively chaste." Bianco described the plot as "amusingly complicated" and Cotrona and Wilde as an "almost impossibly attractive couple". Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times said, "Fox has pulled off a slick, clever melodrama that holds one's attention even when pole-dancing, thong-snapping adult entertainers are off the screen" because "the adults do not fit neatly into hero and villain categories."
Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe beings his review by saying, "If you were to write a book about MTV's influence on series television, you'd have to devote a long chapter to Skin." Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle points out that by the time Skin premiered it was already about a month into the new television season and there were many good shows already struggling to find an audience and it was too late for another show that wasn't truly great to premiere. In exploring the plot development Goodman says, "You begin to think this might be the shortest story arc ever -- a three-episode season." In addressing the conceptual similarities to Romeo and Juliet Goodman wrote, "This kind of forced drama may have worked in Shakespeare's time, but the modern audience doesn't want a tease it can predict."
In addressing the show's cancellation Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly described Skin as one of Fox's good shows and said he expected Arrested Development to be cancelled. Tucker goes on to say of the critical praise the show had received, "critics didn't want to look prudish, so their effusive ejaculations... were premature".
Originally aired on Fox, the first episode attracted 6.3 million viewers. It was down to fewer than 5.1 million viewers in its second airing and fewer than 4.1 million by its third airing.
Read more about this topic: Skin (TV Series)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
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