MTV brings "Skins" to Baltimore. What would John Waters do?

The first season cast of the original Skins

When Skins premiered in 2007 on Britain's Channel 4, fans fell in love with Tony, Maxxie, Chris, Sid, Anwar, Cassie and Michelle. After they graduated, fans learned to love an entirely new class, including "Naomily", a power girl couple that our sister site, AfterEllen.com is pretty fond of talking about. And the character Cassie came to New York City at the end of the second season.

So surely they can relaunch the show on MTV and set it in Baltimore, right?

Fans aren't so sure. Part of the reason that the show worked were the different guidelines about what was acceptable on television in the U.K. The show felt authentic, the teens felt, if a little dysfunctional, quite real. They smoked, did drugs, had sex, and swore in ways that actually made me rewind so that I could learn something.

When it came to the U.S., on BBC America, the show was noticeably toned down, even on cable. Bare bums were pixelated, and a lot of the swearing was gone, muted away to meet our Puritan standards. But at least it wasn't cut so much as it was blurred.

What happens when you have to make the show from scratch to get it past the censors? Nothing good, if you believe the reporting on the blogs — including this one.

Back in April, we first heard the rumors of Skins coming to the U.S.A., and held a Fantasy Casting. I was only appearing in the members comments at the time, not the blog, but I had an opinion on the very thought of an American version:

I'm sorry, but this has trainwreck written all over it.  Unless it ends up on Sundance or Showtime, it can't be done on American TV, and while I'm way too old and Skins way too recent to talk about raping my childhood here, that's all this could do, and I don't want to encourage them. Just say NO to an American version of Skins.

Mine was actually one of the calmer, kinder comments when it came to the idea. Now that an actual production deal has been made and we know that MTV will be involved, fans are really crying foul.

Pulling just the headlines from some of the 86 comments on yesterday's story on AfterEllen, you see:

• OK, I'm not too thrilled
• This is such a bad idea...
• ughh MTV is gonna ruin it!
• Sell outs.
• Noooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

Over on Zap2It, they're running a poll asking if a MTV Skins will be more The Office (great!) or Coupling (my eyes!). At the time of this writing, 77% felt it was more likely to be Coupling. Buzzsugar thinks that once you "neuter" the show for America, what you get is Gossip Girl, and who needs that?

So what about the people involved in the deal? MTV Senior VP of Series Development Liz Gately says "It's been two years that I've been personally involved in trying to get this here to the network." So she's committed. "I don't think I've ever had a negotiation drag out as long as this, but I knew it was something very special."

The original production house in the U.K., says they wanted to get the formula right before they licensed it, and to help it translate successfully, Bryan Elsley, who co-created the series, will executive produce the American version.

Part of what made the original work so well was the casting.
Lightning has already struck twice, can it do so a third time?

Like the original, the series plans to cast unknowns in the roles, trying to keep them as close to the "real teenagers" they're portraying as possible. And choosing to set it in Baltimore gives them a free character — the city itself — that they don't even have to pay union rates. If there's one thing I know from the movies and from HBO's The Wire, Baltimore provides it's own drama. I wonder if their most famous citizen can make a cameo?

John Waters could keep Skins quirky and dirty.