Review – SLiDE
SLiDE – FOX8 – 7:30pm Tuesday – AUS
SLiDE, a new Aussie teen drama, debuted last week on FOX8. The most obvious thing to say about SLiDE is to compare it to that other series with a five letter title starting with an S, Skins. It’s the most obvious comparison, and it’s also the most accurate. SLiDE is Skins Downunder, so much so that you have to wonder why they didn’t just buy the rights to the original series. SLiDE follows a ragtag collection of five seventeen year olds, all from different backgrounds but the same school, and their adventures in love, drinking, sex, and coming of age.
The comparisons to Skins are unavoidable mostly because the cast, with their assortment of different styles, look they’ve dropped out of a Skins audition. There’s pink-haired rebel Eva (Adele Perovic), awkward virgin Ed (Ben Schumann), hot boy Luke (Brenton Thwaites), new rich girl Scarlett (Emily Robins), and curly blonde haired Tammy (Gracie Gilbert) who’s BFFs with Ed, but they’re not dating you guys, they’re just friends; although Ed is so desperate to lose his virginity he constantly pesters Tammy to have sex with him, that is until he meets Scarlett who lives at the hotel where Ed works. When Ed meets Scarlett he totally falls for her, but then she falls for Luke, right around the time Tammy starts to think having sex with Ed is a good idea, but he’s still pining after Luke and like, OMG, you guys, drama.
Everything about this show is trying too hard, from the title with its capital letters and lower case i (RADiCAL!) to that photo above of the cast looking so perfectly imperfect. SLiDE is the sort of show that has Ed dying his hair to impress Scarlett, but in the hope that she might sleep with him he dyes his pubes as well. What craziness will ensue after his pubic region starts to get itchy because the peroxide is starting to burn? Will he scream “Acid? I’ve got acid on my dick!” and run into a convenience store, rip open a bottle of milk and pour it down the front of his pants. Of course he will, because that’s totally random and hilarious. SLiDE strains a little too hard to make its sense of humour connect with the target audience, but like a lot of the show it just comes across forced.
While the show’s writing feels pretty tired (Ed gets stuck at a boring surprise party when he wants to go to cool hotel party! Aren’t parents the worst?!) SLiDE does look pretty fantastic, with some interesting handheld camera work. Even though a lot of the night scenes look lifted from an equally nice looking car commercial the series doesn’t look like any other Aussie drama on television. Another nice touch is that SLiDE is set in Brisbane, which makes a pleasant break from yet another show set in Sydney or Melbourne, but again giving props to the location isn’t exactly the sort of glowing praise a show like this craves.
What SLiDE most reminded me of, other than Skins obviously, was the schoolies road trip movie Blurred from a decade ago, both have daffy titles, and both are trying to tap into what they think teenagers will respond to more than they’re trying to tell a good story. Unlike the completely terrible Blurred, the performances in SLiDE are pretty solid, with the exception of Emily Robins as Scarlett who overacted a fair bit. Ben Schumann was good as Ed even though his character only got to whinge like a bitch for the first hour, then again Adele Perovic appears to playing Eva as a completely stereotypical smart-bad-girl-who-stands-up-for-herself-and-has-pink-hair, which is a character we’ve seen before. The first time Scarlett meets Eva she asks “So I’m guessing you’re the school rebel then?” to which Eva replies “What about you, mummy and daddy don’t pay you enough attention?” which pretty much tells you everything you need to know about Eva, Scarlett and the writer. SLiDE looks good, the cast look good, but the story is kind of groan inducing in parts, especially with its overreliance on teen drama clichés and an all-adults-are-retards mentality.
SLiDE’s Executive Producers have bragged in interviews that they consulted with real seventeen year olds to make sure that they told a story that age group wanted to see. You have to love any show that uses ‘market research’ as a selling point. ‘We know it’s a good story because we thoroughly questioned a randomly selected group of your peers, the way all good art is created.’ If only 34-year-old John Hughes had consulted with some more teenagers The Breakfast Club might speak more to its generation. How foolish were 37-year-old Paul Feig and 32-year-old Judd Apatow to think that Freaks & Geeks would resonate with a teenage audience without double-checking with a group of 17-year-olds to make sure it was all okay? I can guarantee you that 37-year-old Damon Beesley and 35-year-old Iain Morris are kicking themselves they trusted their own, ancient, abilities to create The Inbetweeners instead of outsourcing their creative process to a handpicked selection of 17-year-olds who would definitely have more perspective and insight.
Despite insisting that this is ‘for teenagers by teenagers’ SLiDE engages in the exact same shenanigans that shows aimed at teens have always engaged in. Gossip Girl creator Josh Schwartz is in his thirties but even he could tell you that the kids love a good drunken party that ends in people making out. It’s not rocket science, and yet despite enlisting the help of people the age of the characters every character onscreen still manages to sound as though they’ve been written by an out-of-touch adult. Whether it’s Ed complaining that he’s never going to lose his ‘V plates’ or Eva rebelliously burning the word ‘sanctuary’ on the front lawn of the school like no teenager in the history of the world would ever do (a real teenager, no matter how “clever” would always write some variation of ‘fuck you’), SLiDE is just trying too hard. If it connects to a young audience it’s not because the producers have cracked the secret formula it’s because soap operas about teenagers who rebel, make-out and get drunk always connect with a young audience. In an effort to stand out from the pack SLiDE ends up feeling exactly like every other show that’s ever tried to stand out from the pack.
Good, Alright, Bad Or Ugly?
Bad
