Skin is an American drama television series which aired at 9:00 p.m. Monday on Fox from October 20 to November 3, 2003. It followed the tale of two teenagers who came from feuding families on opposite sides of the moral and legal spectrum. Adam (D. J. Cotrona) is the son of the Los Angeles County District Attorney, and Jewel (Olivia Wilde) is the daughter of a pornographer. The show is a modern-day take on the Romeo and Juliet story. Despite heavy promotion, the series was cancelled after three of its eight filmed episodes aired, amid poor ratings and mixed reviews. In 2005, SOAPnet acquired broadcasting rights to the series and aired the remaining five episodes.

Production

Jim Leonard had the idea for the show, and put it forward to Jerry Bruckheimer. Fox was interested as "it was a really character-based drama, and a new world" where pornography would be the background, not the focus. It was the first series produced by Bruckheimer to be canceled.

Cast and characters

Larry Goldman is Jewish, a pornography magnate and loving father, who controls the Los Angeles pornography industry.

Reception

On May 30, 2003 Bruce Fretts of Entertainment Weekly picked Skin as one of the most promising new series for the 2003–2004 American television season. Fretts said that redoing Romeo and Juliet in a modern setting was nothing new, but having Romeo's father be a district attorney going after Juliet's porn-king father was original enough that "methinks Shakespeare would approve."

Robert Bianco of USA Today said, "Skin traps a 21st-century Romeo and Juliet between two dirty worlds: politics and porn. Throw in race, religion, and economic disparity, and you have enough problems to keep a soap busy for decades. ...Yet there's nothing salacious or pornographic about the show itself, which by current standards is relatively chaste." Bianco described the plot as "amusingly complicated" and Cotrona and Wilde as an "almost impossibly attractive couple". Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times said, "Fox has pulled off a slick, clever melodrama that holds one's attention even when pole-dancing, thong-snapping adult entertainers are off the screen" because "the adults do not fit neatly into hero and villain categories." Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle points out that by the time Skin premiered it was already about a month into the new television season and there were many good shows already struggling to find an audience and it was too late for another show that wasn't truly great to premiere. In exploring the plot development Goodman says, "You begin to think this might be the shortest story arc ever -- a three-episode season." In addressing the conceptual similarities to Romeo and Juliet Goodman wrote, "This kind of forced drama may have worked in Shakespeare's time, but the modern audience doesn't want a tease it can predict."

In addressing the show's cancellation Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly described Skin as one of Fox's good shows and said he expected Arrested Development to be cancelled. Tucker goes on to say of the critical praise the show had received, "critics didn't want to look prudish, so their effusive ejaculations... were premature".

Originally aired on Fox, the first episode attracted 6.3 million viewers. It was down to fewer than 5.1 million viewers in its second airing and fewer than 4.1 million by its third airing.<!--[http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/4616/zap2it1104.html]-->

Episodes

The first three episodes were shown on Fox in 2003 and SOAPnet aired the eight episodes in 2005. There were reports at the time the show was canceled that nine episodes had been produced. CNN reported on November 5, 2003 that production on the series had shut down the day before, after completion of the eighth episode.

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|ShortSummary=Jewel and Adam, although from highly different worlds, meet and fall in love. Even though their fathers are trying to bring the other down, the couple profess their love to each other and continue dating.

Note: This episode aired in Canada on October 19, 2003.

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