Hey, my SO and I watched the British version of this show and while I didn't see the new MTV's SKINS, I enjoyed the UK version a lot. There's a lot of sex, drugs and violence in the other version, I can't imagine the MTV version being any more offensive than what I've already seen.

Maybe parents shouldn't allow their kids to watch this show... I was under the impression that it was a show for adults.

The US version is just a very weak makeover of the UK version. MTV finds that even Tony's duvet is too risque. Even so, MTV seems to have over-estimated the American audience - what more can be expected for a country that would ban the actors from seeing their own performance. MTV proclaims that the show is intended foe ADULTS ONLY What a crock!

The ratings plummeted between the first episode and the second...and yeah this show is probably being angled at 30 somethings that realize that they're not kids anymore and how much that kind of sucks (not to say getting older and more seasoned sucks, it just sucks having so much responsibility and so little time).

Thing is, people who are in the age group (myself included) even find this stuff kind of unsettling. We had a lot of fun, yeah, but we DIDN"T TALK ABOUT IT ON TV.

clearly is MTV trying to take a Moral High ground on this ?

Another reason America sucks. The original british series actually had a few nude scenes. I wish for once America will let something be the way it is supposed to be

Teens have sex?

All these young beauties pictured look so delicious!

MTV got worried 2 weeks before the broadcast of the episode in question? Not during pre-production, or while it was being shot, or while it was being edited, or when it was screened for executives? This seems more like a manufactured controversy to boost interest.

Good job helping MTV with their marketing pitch

edited to reply to kojak above

another bad american remake of great british television.

this is an outrage!

Not all remakes of British Television is crap. Who wants to be a Millionaire as well as the early episodes of the Office were pretty good.

As good as some British Shows are (I'm big on the Inbetweeners & such), their Daytime TV is crap, even compared to American standards.

yeah, true. i guess i just watched an episode of the american office recently and it was terrible. they should end it. and i guess skins is pretty much a glamorous degrassi jr high (the canadian one from the 80's). i just really loved skins and can't see MTV doing anything good with it...

MTV sucks.

"The thing is, if the scene is anything like the similar scene in the original (which it reportedly is) than MTV really shouldn't be concerned."

Is that your legal advice to the network?

To me the thing is, both you and videogum are missing the point that is being made in the Times article.

The executives ordered the producers to make changes to tone down some of the most explicit content.

They are particularly concerned about the third episode of the series, which is to be broadcast Jan. 31. In an early version, a naked 17-year-old actor is shown from behind as he runs down a street. The actor, Jesse Carere, plays Chris, a high school student whose erection — assisted by erectile dysfunction pills — is a punch line throughout the episode.

The planned changes indicate that MTV, which has been pushing the envelope for decades, may be concerned that it pushed too far this time.

Notice that there is no mention of what the "planned changes" are. You're assuming that they involve not showing the actor's butt as he runs down the street. I would assume that they're more significant than that, because you're probably correct that there little likelihood of a finding of an "appeal to the prurient interest" in that shot, there may be such a finding related to content that continually focuses the "erection — assisted by erectile dysfunction pills" of an underage character.

Time to move the show to HBO.

The trick is that it's not what MTV thinks is porn-ish that matters. It's what some housewife in Idaho thinks is porn-ish that matters.

And, look at that picture. Dead center is what appears to be a naked male with a woman holding his nipple and licking his neck.

I don't know what kind of porn Videogum watches, but I know someone's going to think that's sexually suggestive.

It's not what MTV or some Idaho housewife thinks that matters. It's what the Justice Department thinks that matters.

The current Federal definition of pornography, created through legislation against child pornography, doesn't require nudity. Prosecutable obscenity doesn't even require images, let alone photographs. Just because there hasn't been a high profile case recently doesn't mean there won't be any coming.

If the government thinks they have a case, they'll make it. MTV execs pre-emptively toning down their material is a chilling effect resulting from no one really knowing what's legal and what's not.

I don't think the JD will go for prosecution unless there's a big uproar from the moms of America. But that's just my opinion.