Television

Skins, a dramedy beginning tonight on BBC America, starts disagreeably, with a surfeit of self-protective cool. But it becomes more likable over ensuing episodes, as the pace relaxes and the focus turns toward more sympathetic and interesting characters.

Co-created by father and son Bryan Elsley, 47, and Jamie Brittain, almost 23, it comes from E4, a British pay-TV channel, which means it's as nasty as it wants to be. And within the bounds of a television show about high school students, it wants to be fairly nasty.

There is a lot of "bad language," bleeped for basic-cable American ears — heaven forbid a precious snowflake hear a dirty word — a little bit of nudity, pixel-blurred for American eyes (see previous); a lot of talk about sex and drugs ("skins" being British slang for rolling papers); some acting up under the influence; and general contempt for authority figures and older people. Most of the adults here are useless, clueless, corrupt or dangerous.

It takes its cues, in a roundabout way, from American teen soaps such as Dawson's Creek, but it's more satirical in intent, more grotesque around the edges. Because the kids here get up to the sorts of trouble that kids do actually get up to — but in most television series get up to rarely, and not without a lesson attached — the show comes on as bold and "realistic."

It's all elevated by looking really beautiful (although not — and this is the crucial difference — stylish). The pictures fill in the blanks, and even as Skins strains credibility, it achieves moments of poetry.