When I first heard the news last week that Degrassi had been canceled after 14 seasons on the air, I was transported back in time to my tweenage self, who one day stumbled upon the little teen drama. I remember being simultaneously horrified and enthralled by the pilot episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation, which included a storyline of tween Emma actually going to meet a guy, who — SPOILER ALERT — turned out to not be the cute boy her age she had been talking to online but actually a creepy older guy with bad intentions.
I would have these exact same emotions as I continued to watch the series, which is probably why I stuck with it for so long. I have fond memories of debriefing the latest episode with my best friend, who was also obsessed with the show, scouring the web for details about the “too-hot-for-TV” episode where Manny got an abortion and generally wondering how so many terrible things could happen to the students of a single high school.
However, by the time I was actually the age of the characters on the show, I lost interest in Degrassi. I don’t think it had to do with the quality of the show so much as it did the fact that my TV time was limited while dealing with AP classes and extracurriculars, as well as actually not sitting home watching TV on Friday nights anymore.
But a few years later while looking for something to watch on TV, I decided to turn on TeenNick and see what Degrassi had become. I felt so confused and disoriented because I didn’t recognize anyone. Paige, Toby, Liberty and the rest of the Degrassi OGs had been replaced with a whole new batch of younger characters I had never seen before.
I didn’t feel too old for the show’s soapy teen melodrama. I watched the entire series of Gossip Girl until it ended three years ago, after all. I just felt like my time with the Degrassi I knew was definitely over. So when I heard the news that Degrassi had been canceled, I was sad but ultimately OK with it because I had said goodbye to this show a long time ago.
Now that Netflix recently announced that it will be airing new episodes of “the newest generation of the Degrassi franchise” called Degrassi: Next Class in 2016, I don’t know how to feel about it. The fact that Netflix picked up Degrassi so quickly means that there was hardly any time to get some distance from the show to see if keeping it alive was actually the best option. This wasn't a case of a show getting canceled before its time. Keeping a show on that has already been around for 14 seasons and that probably doesn't have the freshest story lines anymore just seems unnecessary.
Degrassi graduates to Netflix. Meet the Next Class, coming in 2016 pic.twitter.com/FhUZJ3ZiiL
— Netflix US (@netflix) June 9, 2015
However, this move by Netflix really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone these days. Now with streaming services becoming major entertainment distribution platforms, we almost expect one of them to step in and save a series when it gets canceled by a network. This is probably because we’ve seen so many high-profile examples of this happening as of late with Netflix picking up Arrested Development for a fourth season in 2013; Yahoo Screen's streaming of Community, which aired its Season 6 finale on June 2, and Hulu most recently ordering 26 new episodes of The Mindy Project.
Still, I’m a firm believer in things happening for a reason, so when a show gets canceled, I’m usually not in favor of it coming back. Sure, Arrested Development maybe could have used a fourth season but a contiguous one back when it was on Fox. I say maybe because the series was already starting to go downhill in Season 3. The fact that Arrested Development was brought back seemed like a way to capitalize on people's nostalgia and play into the years-long plea for the series' return in TV or movie form. This was definitely a case of be careful what you wish for, because Season 4 of Arrested Development was a disjointed slog to get through. Whenever a TV show returns after a long hiatus like this, to me, it always just seems like one of those cheesy one-off episodes that reunite casts and put us back into the worlds of shows like The Facts of Life and The Brady Bunch.
Community seemed to be revived for similar reasons, although its absence from network TV was much shorter since NBC had just canceled the sitcom in 2014. Community was actually in such danger of being canceled for much of its network run on NBC that it seemed like it already had so many series finales in preparation for the end. At this point, it seems like it's being kept alive just to please fans who are still hoping for "six seasons and a movie."
Although the quality of these revivals may be suspect, it does make a lot of sense for streaming services to continue to crank them out. In this day and age where entertainment is so readily available to stream, series do find new life online, which can provide a built-in audience for their continuation. A show like Arrested Development grew its passionate cult following beyond just the viewers that watched it on Fox the first time thanks to people streaming it, which helped grow support for the show to eventually get a fourth season.
Of course, network television has done this sort of thing for years and will continue to do so in the near future with Heroes Reborn coming to NBC in the fall and The X-Files landing back at Fox in early 2016. Of course, these are more along the lines of reboots rather than series revivals, but it still goes to show just how much distributors recognize, cater to and fuel our desire to never leave our favorite fictional worlds.
With our #TBT-obsessed society, it doesn't look like streaming services will stop reviving beloved TV shows any time soon. The sad part is, as much as I dislike the idea of reviving TV shows, I’m one of those people who will still revisit them because, ultimately, if I love the show, I can’t help but be curious to see what my favorite characters have been up to. Streaming services know that and will continue to tap into that as long as we allow them to.
So I might sit in on an episode of Degrassi: Next Class just to see what my favorite show as a tween is like these days. Even though you can never really go home again, you’ve got to at least try.
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