A new E4 series called Misfits you say? About a group of young delinquents doing community service?

We’ve not been this put off a new TV series since the Bad Girls pilot. In fact, the likelihood of a good series coming from E4 is akin to that of finding a hen’s tooth, or Tess Daly’s soul.

Imagine the disquiet and shock which consumed us when we saw the first episode of this teen-insert genre here and discovered it’s actually quite good. Maybe Tess Daly has a soul after all.*

To get the comparison cliché out of the way, Misfits can be best described as Dead Set meets Heroes meets Shameless. There’s certainly a comic book feel to it à la Heroes, despite writer Howard Overman maintaining ignorance of the illustration laden literature.

In this television programme, a number of actors pretend to possess a different personality to their own, in a number of staged situations and circumstances. Their words are also not their own, they are given to them beforehand by the aforementioned writer, Howard Overman. In the opening episode this group of young, mostly unknown actors pretend to perform manual tasks in order to fulfil the community service aspect of their respective characters’ sentencing. An artificially created storm interrupts them, and through a combination of wind, rain, and CG effects, they are struck by lightning. None of them are harmed – on the contrary, they awake with some super powers. They are bestowed with the ability to hear thoughts, turn back time, become invisible, and to instil in people an intense sexual desire.

This wee acting conglomerate is lead by Robert Sheehan, a young Irishman best known for his role as BJ in the excellent Red Riding series. Robert (or Nathan, as he purports to be in this) provides plentiful comic relief in the Irish craic style popularised by Les Dennis‘ impression of Graham Norton in Extras.

In series such as this or Heroes, realism and grittiness are highly sought-after commodities. Such things are mostly unobtainable in a fantasy scenario such as this, so a substantial amount of credit is due to this relatively inexperienced writer. Howard has also successfully captured the often foul dialogue of teenagers while retaining enough clarity in order for it to be understood by a wider audience.

An impressive social media campaign will be running alongside the series to both accompany and expand on the story arc via Twitter, Facebook and YouTube etc. To make this worthwhile to viewers, those who pay close attention will be rewarded with a character who won’t be revealed on TV till episode six, amongst other things.

All in all, this looks set to be one of those popular ones.

Misfits starts on E4 on Thurs Nov 12 at 10pm

*She doesn’t.

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Omg! Lolz!!1!!1! If you’re a 12-year-old with a deluded view on what teenage life is like, that will probably be your reaction.

However if, like us, you live in the real world, you’ll no doubt be banging your head against the nearest blunt object.

Skins can only be described as the Daily Mail’s worst nightmare, since the show takes us into the supposed world of a teenager’s life. It wouldn’t make for good viewing if the characters all had study groups, helped the elderly and grew their own organic vegetables. Instead, it’s filled with boozing, shagging, crying and drug taking. Usually confined to E4, it might now bother you on the big screen.

Forget your popcorn and cola when the film eventually dumps itself in the cinema, you’ll be talking poppers and cocaine instead! Cinema workers’ lives will be made ten times harder as they deal with kids snorting drugs off sticky carpets and then tripping out and licking strangers’ eyeballs.

On TV, Skins has been successful and has recently finished its third outing. It could have been a potential tits-up in the making as producers decided to sack the original cast that established the show. Why, we’re not overly sure but it did seem a bit obvious seeing that the characters were all buggering off to university or taking up a life of prostitution.

With series three, we were introduced to a cast of characters who were just as diverse and strange as the ones they followed. We saw lesbianism, virginity-stealing, house parties spiralling out of control, shagging, girly violence, more shagging and plenty of pills being swallowed. Or MDMA put in to cakemix.

How a one-off Skins film will work is unclear at this point. Usually, all of the plotlines are all interlinked but share the same love for snorting something or getting a shandy at the pub. Perhaps for 90 minutes the two casts will be reunited and they’ll sit in a field getting wasted.

Of course, due to everyone being pretty spaced out, the characters may start to have their minds opened up. They question the theories written by Stephen Hawking, rewrite Einstein’s law of relativity and start to draw up blueprints on how to build a flying car. But of course, we don’t know that. Actually, we know bugger all about anything related to a Skins film. All we have is The Guradian’s quote sparking fear into us that the thing might actually happen:

“The broadcaster said that Film4 and Company Pictures, the independent producer that makes the show, were in “preliminary talks” about a big screen spin-off.”

Who knows, they could make it really weird by getting Dev Patel in it. Because he’s a technical Oscar winner now, he could arrive back in Bristol where Skins is set and start harping on about being all successful.

Or probably not.

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If you’re a Skins fan, then get ready to literally jump around the house like you’ve just had six tins of Red Bull. We’ve managed to pester the show’s musical composer Fat Segal and ask him some random questions which probably just wasted his day.

Anyone who has watched the opening credits of Skins will have been mesmerised by the calm and gentle notes which slowly branches off into different musical snapshots. Snatches of glitch, electronica and even a sly hint of post-gabba can be heard. On Fat Segal’s MySpace page, songs such as Silly Billy Borg combine filthy basslines with snippets of vocal samples which will no doubt cause a frenzy on the dancefloor amongst the kids.

We sent the following questions over and this is what we got back:

Is the name Fat Segal a name dedicated to Britain’s obese seagull epidemic or a tribute to Steven Segal?

It is certainly nothing to do with birds or aikido, but is pronounced the same as the actor you mention.

You’ve attracted major attention through your music being featured on Skins. Do you want to record under the Fat Segal alias for a bit longer and then move on?

Not sure, I will probably always record under ‘Segal’ but I have a few different aliases already.

What’s better? Potato skins or the TV show Skins?

Depends. By my reckoning there is nothing better in the entire tap-dancing world than a potato skin roasted with some red leicester, bacon (preferably smoked and streaky), spring onions, finished with sour cream, a touch of lime juice, a sprinkling of chives, washed down with a bottle of cerveza.

Would you consider a permanent move into soundtracking TV and film?

Yeah I love doing it. I’d be well up for scoring film, but I also want to make records. I could be like Phillip Glass without any of the musicality!

How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard of you?

Utter clown shit to be honest.

Electronic music can be created on the move. Did you get opportunities to jam alongside what was being filmed?

The track that opens the second series of Skins was pretty much created on a laptop during choreography/rehearsals. Mainly though I keep my distance, only get involved when the cut takes shape.

Have you ever heard of hecklerspray before today? We try and write stuff to make people laugh or cause fits of misspelt rage.

That’s weird; I try and do that with my music.

What’s your favourite meal?

Aside from potato skins gotta be Prawn Linguini with garlic, chilli and lemon

What’s floating your boat musically?

Drexciya – Grava 4, Steve Reich – Daniel Variations and Mastodon – Leviathan.

Where the devil did the producers of the show find you in order to create the beats for the show?

Jamie Brittain (Skins Co-Creator) is one of my best friends and we used to make tracks together at uni, it spiralled from there. Did some demo theme music for them and they kindly offered me the role of composer on the show.

Where can we get our paws on your music?

You’ll be able to get my first ever rekkid from that virtual music boutique that rhymes with ‘pie goons’ very soon. Just finalising the artwork.

Any words of wisdom?

I’m going to have to let Gandalf answer that one.

For more:

Fat Segal MySpace page

Skins Series 3 is on E4 on Thursdays from 10pm where music from Fat Segal can be heard throughout. Just listen carefully.

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After establishing itself as one of E4’s more successful shows which isn’t Friends or Big Brother, the programme has taken a strange and swift change of direction. Instead of building on the foundations of the second series, the producers have instead decided to tell the original cast to bugger off as they’ve hired some fresh meat.

At the end of Skins 2, we all cried a little tear as each character got their A-level results and went off to do their own thing. Nerdy Sid decided he was going to hunt New York City for Cassie, the love of his life. Someone should have told him though that the city is a big place. At least double the size of Bristol.

The group of friends did put aside their bickering to unite as one at the funeral of Chris who died from a blood clot to the brain. What a shitter, his girlfriend Jal was up the duff with his child. Oh well, she can always rely on the state for some benefit money.

Patchy lovers Tony and Michelle ended up getting the results they needed to get in to Uni. The distance between Cardiff and York seemed to stretch their rekindled romance as they amicably called it off. This comes despite everyone knowing students don’t do 9-5 days and spend most of their time getting pissed, eating Pot Noodles and plagiarising essays off Wikipedia and Google Books.

Where does that leave us then? The only member of the cast to have been retained is Effy, the sister of Tony. Whilst making the odd appearance in a couple of episodes, we are warmly reminded of the time when she got wasted on drugs and was saved by her brother who was nearly made to make sweet incestuous love to his sister.

So who have we got to replace the existing characters? E4’s website lists the following people who between them will consume Bristol’s entire supply of pills while bopping around to wooden-sounding electro.

Pandora – An adorable virgin. This basically means she will lose her virginity at some point. But who will be the first to spread her legs and get in to her love box? You know, Pandora’s Box? Oh never mind.

Thomas – Thomas is a good honest soul and has moved to a new country. More than likely he’ll be corrupted and involved in countless sex sessions involving a bottle of chilli sauce and some pliers.

Cook – Cook pulls off daring and dangerous stunts. He’ll be the one to arse everything up, the annoying person who constantly craves attention.

Freddie – Has got bags of potential but no va va vooom. Thierry Henry will solve this by giving him a new Renault.

JJ – The master illusionist has a huge imagination. With child-like excitement, he dreams up entertaining schemes. After cutting an assistant in half by mistake, he’ll morph into a younger Paul Daniels to be more like his idol.

Katie – Super smart Katie is shedding her identical twin skin. Either she’ll take some drugs, go a rave or stay up past her normal bedtime. She’s Emily’s twin!

Emily – Likes being a twin, but she’s crippled by her own shyness. Blah blah blah, she’ll find some confidence and do some sort of hilarious swap with her twin sister Emily in an exam.

Naomi – Passionate, political and principled, no one believes in anything anymore. Erm…we don’t know. Maybe she’ll burn her bra.

So, there we go. Expect shagging, swearing and all sorts of mental behaviour! Does it reflect our childhood in an easy-to-digest hour-long show? No, not really – we experienced things more like E4’s other home-grown show The Inbetweeners. Go on, admit it. It’s a more realistic portrayal of teenage life.

Skins series 3 begins tomorrow on E4. Let’s go crazy!

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The famous idiom pot calling the kettle black springs to mind here. Although it’s more a case of the pot calling the kettle a cunt for being a pot.

It’s like Boris Johnson telling David Cameron he has a silly voice and stupid hair and feeling that his party’s views are “a little bit too conservative” for his liking.

Dyer, the moron star of immense twaddle such as Outlaw and The Business, gives the impression that he may just be the teeny weeniest little bit jealous of Orlando’s recent success.

“I do genuinely think Orlando Bloom is a cunt. I’ve never met him, but he’s in the same game as me and he’s loaded. I’m still living in the ghetto in East London and he’s earning three million quid a film. He got lucky. He came out of drama school and got Lord of the Rings.”

If we can just interject here for a moment: anyone who refers to East London as a ghetto without hint of irony or sarcasm is a dick. That is certified fact. No two ways about it. Dick.

We’re sure you would have been really very good in Lord of the Rings had Bloom not beaten you to it though. It may have gone a little something like this:

“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY, we are the fellowship, we are the fellowship-ah! Fackin’ right in my son, Aragorn; give that Arwen one up the ring from me. Who’s wants a fackin’…..Oi! Frodo you cant, ‘ave you nicked my fackin’ rizla’s again?”

Dyer continued:

“He wasn’t all that good in it, but it put him on the map, didn’t it? He’s the opposite of me, he’s well media-trained and boring. Plus, he can’t act.”

Yeah. Yeah. Totally the opposite of you then. You’re just so bloody interesting and un-media trained, Dyer. How do you do it? Plus, you can act. You were really good in Skins as that man who did all those things in that place. And don’t even get us started on Severance. Melding comedy and horror together without including either genre in any way! Genius! It really worked.

Plus, this has put you on the map you big wanker. It may only be hecklerspray’s map of cunts and you may only be the Britain to Bono’s America on Planet Cunt, but it’s a map nonetheless.

Look, don’t get us wrong, we don’t rate Orlando Bloom’s acting either; we agree with you on that front, Dyer. We definitely do. It’s just that you happen to be a bigger cunt and an even more one-note actor, who, thanks to your ridiculously idiotic films and involvement with Zoo magazine, is contributing to the dumbing down of mainstream society. That’s all. No offense or anything. We’re sure you’re alright apart from that.

We would totally love to have a Stella with you and discuss football and listen to Oasis and look at some birds. We would love that. It’s just that we happen to be busy until the end of time. Or don’t want to, due to having a reasonable level of intellect. One of the two. We forget which.

Read more:

Dyer: ‘Orlando Bloom Can’t Act’ – Digital Spy

Let’s start with the good news, shall we: The entire cast of dire TV twaddle Skins are to be made redundant! Yeah! No more undeveloped twatty stereotypes with better hair than you!

That would be so sweet if it weren't for the bad news. 

The twatty stereotypical undeveloped characters are to be replaced by twattier further stereotyped undeveloped characters with even better hair. Fuck. The good news isn’t quite so good anymore, is it? Pretend you haven’t read this bit. Delete it from your brains. It hasn’t happened.

Still reading? More fool you. It gets worse:

After beginning nationwide open auditions recently and announcing that they’re on the look-out for an “Eastern European male and identical twin sisters,” executive producer Bryan Elson confirmed that all current characters will be axed.

This probably means The Cheeky Girls are going to be in the new series saying excellent dialogue such as:

“Towny, why you’re cock not werk?”

And:

“Ow fyuck my pyeriod is own. I bleed downstaars. Dis is sow like reeall lif. Let's dance for no reason.”

The rumours are true, the head of Channel Four is definitely a peanut. Unsalted. With no sense of reality. Obviously. Peanuts don’t have that generally. We’re just clarifying in case anyone from Channel Four is reading. Hi people from Channel Four! You’re dead good at telly! That would be so true if it weren’t false. So close.

The horrible news is that Bono is still alive.

Read more:

Skins Cast Axed! - Zoo