Such an awesome post. You're making me want to rewatch! I forgot how good Skins could be when it was good. I think some of the character inconsistencies come out of the desire to always be scandalous and shocking and dramatic. That really lessens this show that is so brilliant in the little quiet moments. I can't remember if you watch Friday Night Lights. That show did similar things, where it could be so brilliant and real and then kept wasting too much time on scandalous and exciting teen romance plots.

As for Gen 2, they do kind of ruin Effy a bit. She was so distant in the Gen 1 and then in Gen 2, she's sort of the protagonist and she is just way too involved in everything. And "everything" includes a lot of really stupid plotlines. And Tony's absence through a lot of the crap she's going through in those seasons doesn't ring true at all for me.

Please write Sid and Cassie in New York fic! I totally agree about wanting to see them just get to know each other.

As for Michelle not being able to stay with Tony in S2, I feel like she owed him nothing. He treated her like absolute shit and seemed to take pleasure from it. I didn't really like the "We were good, weren't we?" bit because it seemed like the writers were trying to gloss over how absolutely terrible he was to her.