November 07, 2024
TV REVIEW

Shakespeare strikes again as ‘Skin’ makes TV debut

Ol’ Bill Shakespeare would be a rich man if he were alive today.

After all, for years and years, film and TV writers have been relentlessly cribbing from his works (of course, he’s been accused of that, too). Can you imagine the royalties he would have received?

The latest example of this is “Skin,” which debuts at 9 tonight on Fox. This umpteenth riff on “Romeo and Juliet” features two star-crossed young lovers whose parents just don’t understand (who says TV doesn’t promote the classics?).

Jewel Goldman (played by Olivia Wilde) meets Adam Roam (D.J. Cotrona) at a club. They run off in her drunken, groping boyfriend’s car and talk for hours at a coffee shop, falling for each other in the process.

It doesn’t take long for viewers to discover that they’re from two different worlds. Jewel’s parents are Larry (Ron Silver), an adult-entertainment mogul, and his social-climbing wife, Barbara (Pamela Gidley).

Adam’s parents are Thomas (Kevin Anderson), the district attorney determined to take down Larry Goldman, and his judge wife, Laura (Rachel Ticotin).

Both sets of parents demand that the two teens not see each other any more. They rebel, because if they didn’t, it would quash the whole concept of the series.

“Skin” is the latest series from the producer with the golden touch, Jerry Bruckheimer, and best of all there’s no forsenics in sight. Instead, there’s the two fathers trying to outsmart each other, the two mothers acting as sounding boards and the two teens just plain sneakin’ around.

“Skin” somehow manages, successfully, to be both a soap opera and a police procedural. Everyone is spying on, and lying to, each other, proving that the family drama is not dead.

A strong adult cast, all of whom were the best parts of past quickly expired series, helps “Skin” be more than the sum of its parts. A late start because of the baseball playoffs could hamper it against fellow upstart “Las Vegas” on NBC, but “Skin” deserves to get a long look.


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