It's season 6 of the infamous teenage series created by father-and-son team Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain, and the cast of Skins are on a well deserved holiday. Yes, it’s a hard life being drug-guzzling, melodramatic layabouts, and you have to take a break sometimes. And where better for a group of hedonistic cretins to elope to than Morocco, a country where they can rest assured that the drugs will be flowing and the rural poverty suitably hidden (so as to avoid actually having to think about anything vaguely worthwhile).

Skins sometimes likes to boast that it’s written by, or with the help of, young people themselves. And in the worst possible way, you can really, really tell. It’s exactly the kind of crap most teenagers would come out with – unrealistic, idealistic and hopelessly angst-ridden. Characters are forever mumbling “deep” statements and generally just being moody pricks; the best example of this being Matty (played by Sebastian De Souza), who is so hateable it’s hard to stop yourself literally throwing your TV out the window whenever his face looms despairingly into focus. Closely following behind in the irritating stakes, however, is Matty's on-off girlfriend Franky. Bored of "all the sex and talking" she has had to endure from Matty – oh, the hardship! – she proceeds to enter into a typically destructive affair with the first suspicious character she can lay her sweaty mitts on. Predictably, it doesn't end well - although, in the spirit of gleeful shadenfreude, the disasterous outcome is one of the more enjoyable aspects of the episode.

In fact, the whole Skins phenomenon has become increasingly shit as time has worn wearily on. Remember when Skins was funny? That’s right, funny. The first series, while equally as ridiculous, had a kind of dry, tongue-in-cheek feel to it that has been almost completely lost.

To be fair to the show, the characters are largely well acted. Jessica Sula is good as the dreamy Grace, and Will Merrick is on hand as Alo to provide the light-hearted relief. Even Dakota Blue Richards is hard to fault as Franky, and if her character remains highly infuriating it’s largely due to the appalling script. The writing is frequently lazy, reverting to stereotype at every possible opportunity, while attempts to make the characters relatable have the opposite effect.

The whole thing might work as pure escapism if it didn’t take itself so seriously. The fact is, no young person lives their life like the Skins cast. You might have occasional moments of hedonistic madness, but when you’re 16, this largely constitutes drinking cheap cider and sneakily puffing on Marlboro Lights. It’s all a far cry from popping pills to go down the local shopping centre (because, y’know, just normal shopping is so mundane) and it’s about time Skins took this into account.

Skins shows on E4 on Mondays at 10pm.