To be honest, it was immature of the writers to write s7 before they see who's available and who's not. When E4 said our iconic/favorite characters will return, I expect to see Tony, Sid, Cassie, and Jal again especially Tony. He IS Skins, not Effy. I don't really care for Effy and Cook. I bet you JB and BE and their favoritism bs are going to use most of the screen-time to put them back together. With g1 missing in action and g3 already ruined, there's really nothing to look forward to for s7..

There’s parts I agree and disagree with this. 

I agree that it was short sighted for the writers to even begin getting together to write scripts and it was also a mistake for E4 to have such a specific press release on something that was bare boned. 

This is what I feel like happened. No way to prove this. This is just my gut intuition. I feel like they had that big Skins reunion and everyone started to talk about the good old days. Then ideas were thrown. People casually agreed to things without fully thinking about schedules, etc. The idea was pitched with the decision to not continue Skins. E4 said “sounds good and let’s do Series 7..’Skins’ is an iconic show and we want to do right by it” while thinking if they can get certain actors to it ….it could be really good. 

The writers started writing feeling confident that people were going to return. As they were writing. Negotiations began. People were like “no i can’t.” “I have this.” “I thought it was a great idea but I didn’t commit.” Things started to fall apart and now they are quiet trying to figure out what they can do to save the project. Whether they want to postpone it (which could be great for casting but bad for momentum) or whether to make it a Gen 2 fest. Or whether to put the Gen 1 characters with Gen 2 and just extend their spots. Or to condense it to a three episode series. 

That’s what I feel like happened. I thought from the very beginning that either they knew something we didn’t….or like they were dangerous miscalculating several factors. When you write a new series you write the characters and cast later. When you do a sequel you figure out who’s on board in pre-negotiations then start writing. You don’t write for characters you don’t even know will exist for that series. 

I’m not sure if Generation 3 is ruined (though you probably disliked Series 6 so that may be why you said that!). I feel like they have a few options with Gen 3. So far Gen 2 looks strong if they can get Lily and Kat on board as well. However as a whole it looks horrible.