An article on This is North Scotland - link - who in turn are quoting Daily Star - are reporting that April Pearson (Michelle) and Mike Bailey (Sid) are going to be axed after this new series because they are too expensive.

They aim on keeping all of the other actors (including Nicholas Hoult who plays Tony, whom lets face is the most famous out of all of them (and so presumably the more expensive *shrugs*)) but will look to recast April and Mike’s parts.

How genuine is this? Not sure. Personally I can’t see this being true at all (and this is the Daily Star who are the original source!), but my problem with this is that I can’t see at the moment, having not seen the new series, how they can keep Skins beyond S2 because the show is meant to reflect kids aged 17-18 who are at college and so at some point would go to university. Okay so this is TV but even so it’s not going to be realistic if (1) none of them decide to go to uni - highly unlikely, especially in Jal’s case or (2) if they all go to the same university.

If they do send them to uni then it would too complicated because they will have to introduce new characters, the characters will be doing different things, etc.

As much as I enjoy Skins I do feel that there has to be a cut off point somewhere - better to end on a high than drag it on through countless series.

Thoughts?

Edit:

I’ve just reread the article and I noticed it said the producers are hoping to persuade Nicholas Hoult to stay on to direct a few of the episodes of S3. It makes it seem like to me, by the use of "persuade" that there has been some sort of fallout?