Degrassi

I was just a scootch too old to be into the original Degrassi series when it first aired in the late 1980's.  I've heard many people express a great deal of nostalgia for it, though, so I decided to check out the original series (available on Hulu and Amazon Prime) and the newer series showing on Teen Nick.

Degrassi is a teen soap opera produced in Canada.  The original show followed a group of kids through junior and senior high and ran for five seasons starting in 1988.  I was quite impressed.  The first season ended with a pregnant 14 year-old (she kept the kid) and subsequent seasons had story lines on abortion, bullying, HIV, and drunk driving.  The final episode even had two of the good kids using the f-word as a verb (quite racy for a teen basic cable show).  There's messages, but it doesn't get preachy which was nice. Needless to say, it was heavily censored when the show first came to the US since we are not as progressive as out neighbors to the north.

Degrassi:  The Next Generation, picked up about ten years later with one of the original kids now a teacher and one of the students being the child of the first show's pregnant 14 year old.  I was playing catch up on Teen Nick, so I watched it largely out of order but I've gotten through most of the old episodes before the new season starts tonight.  They hung on to the original cast a bit too long, even following them to college (stupid when the show is about Degrassi Community School).  The show still follows all of the hot button issues for teens with someone pregnant every few seasons just to remind girls that this could happen to you.  The biggest flaw is the complete disconnect from reality.  These kids are running around largely unsupervised with concerned parents shown somewhat negatively (is it really as easy as the show makes it seem for kids to go off and live in their own?).  There's too many celebrity cameos.  It's great that Kevin Smith was a fan of the original show, but I don't need him and Jason Mewes playing themselves in an absurd plot about making a movie at the school and then helping some students get Hollywood careers.  Students have appeared on numerous television shows, become Parisian fashion models (girl was way too short), gotten record deals, starred in movies, and worked as strippers.  The plots on their own might have been okay, but the cumulative effect is to turn the show into a fantasy.

Maybe it is just because I am closer in age to the original show's characters, but the first show is much better than The Next Generation.  Partly it is because the plots were more realistic, but it is also the characters were a lot more likable.  Heck, I even got a bit misty-eyed over one of the bullies in the final episode of Degrassi  High.  In TNG, the characters are a lot more self-centered and nasty.  I don't think  I've gotten through more than three episodes in a row without thinking one of the characters was a complete ass who ought to be smacked upside the head.  I'll probably keep watching TNG for now, but it is not a must-see.