OMG! Skins is back! E4’s modern-day take on one side of ‘yoof culture’ returns to make everyone feel like they have crap parties, old and extremely unfashionable.

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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