patti darbanville-quinn

With the news coming down this week that MTV is adapting the UK's teen sensation Skins for American audiences, it became obvious which show I was going to do next for this column. The thing about Skins that works so well is that it rings of authenticity, which is rare in teen programming. It also features teenagers who are truly acting their age; no old dudes with male pattern baldness pretending to be high school sophomores.

We've seen all this before. A long time ago, before The WB and UPN built programming models for teen audiences, there was a little show on ABC that nobody really knew what to do with. My So-Called Life tackled teen issues, not in "a very special episode" way, but in a raw, unfiltered way. It was wonderful.