Skins (E4, 10pm); Victorian Farm (BBC2, 9pm); Total Emergency (ITV1, 9pm).

SOMETHING strange has happened to edgy teen drama Skins. After two series, the main cast has been axed – well, sent to university – and replaced by a fresh intake of students as the class of 2009.

This opening episode seems to have lost the gritty edge that typified Skins and made it so popular with its young target audience.

Whether this broader approach will last, only the makers know. For the moment, it resembles Teachers (on top form) crossed with a post-watershed Waterloo Road. The new students are the usual rebellious bunch, more interested in sex, drugs and rock and roll (not necessarily in that order) than education.

James Cook breakfasts on lager and cigarettes, reluctant to go to college until a pretty girl catches his eye.

He also has an unusual tattoo that, for reasons best left unexplained, he shows the entire assembly. As this involves dropping his trousers, you may get an idea where he’s tattoed. Skateboarder Freddie and nerdish JJ are his best friends at Roundview College.

They eye up the female talent, with Freddie and JJ finding so much choice disconcerting. “No, it’s not,” says Jack.

“It’s just a case of sorting out the wheat from the chavs.”

Effy, sister of departed Tony, flounces along the corridor in a minuscule dress that wouldn’t cover a birdcage.

There are identical twins who don’t get along and Pandora, who asks what inexplicable means. “I can’t explain,” says Effy.

If you think they’re outrageous, you should see the staff at this designated four-star educational establishment under the national We’re All In It Together initiative.

The college head won’t take any slacking, telling the students: “God help you all, you’re all going to get some qualifications.”

The new head of communications, back at work after time off for a stress-related illness, has what can only be described as a stressful time. This has something to do with Effy setting her suitors a list of tasks. First one to complete them all “gets to know me”.

As the list includes abusing a teacher, starting a fire and having sex in school, you can be certain the first day of term won’t pass without incident.

I suspect Skins will grow edgier and darker now we’ve got the getting-to-know-you opener out of the way. The potential to shock and surprise is there.

EVER wondered what it would be like to run a farm in Victorian England, living only on what you could grow yourself using the most basic of provisions and equipment?

Wearing period clothes and using only the materials that would have been available in 1885, historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn have gone back in time to relive the day-to-day life of the Victorian farmer.

In this episode, the preparations for winter begin in earnest, and they get to work stocking up on animal feed, building pigsties and tackling the gruelling process of the laundry.

They also take delivery of a ram and a shire horse, which Alex learns to drive, and celebrate Christmas with the friends they’ve made over the past four months.

THE documentary series Total Emergency is the first time cameras have focused on the police, fire and ambulance services in one city. In this case, Sheffield.

It examines their different roles while exploring what happens when they receive a call-out that means they all have to work together.

Sheffield has more than 1,000 police officers, 200 ambulance staff and nearly 300 firefighters covering a 142sq mile area that includes a busy city centre, large housing estates, industrial sites and a stretch of the M1. Drug raids, car crashes and major blazes can be all in a day’s work.

In this programme, the police prepare for a football derby with a long record of violence, determined to ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself, while paramedics treat a patient with a gashed head.

All three services come together to find a man suffering from Alzheimer’s who has been missing for more than 15 hours.