Matt the Great

Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week

1. Alex and the hood she always hangs out with are finally in the opening credits. Fine.
2. Where are Sean and Ashley??? This is not cool. Sean was like, the more watchable version of Spinner; Ash was the hot, goth, singer chick who went to London. And to answer my question, she's not coming back. But Sean was written off the show in one passing "I'm so over that drama" from Emma. Lame work, writers.
3. Peter. There's a new kid at Degrassi Community School. He's an American Eagle pretty boy, wannabe director that creepily always has his Hi-8 cam in hand, even when he comes off the basketball court. Thanks, Canada, for giving us another Dawson.

The episode tonight belonged to Manny who, after acting in last season's Jay & Silent Bob "do Canada" movie (guest starring Alanis Morissette), decided to be an actress (read: "gets her breasts done"). She drunkenly lets Creepy Dawson film her undone breasts, and then he Paris Hiltons her to the whole school. Paige is still a bitch; Emma is still the voice of what one ought to do.

But even after all my anticipation for the return of the 100% Intense Canadafest, the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week happened in the commercial break: I saw an ad from The N promoting their airing of THE ORIGINAL DEGRASSI SERIES! There was Spike and Snake from 20 years ago making a date to go to the Gourmet Scum concert! The N is airing these episodes Sundays through Thursdays at midnight, calling it Degrassi, Old School, which I don't think it was called when it first aired.

Degrassi, for those that need the schooling (I kill me), is a Canadian public television series that followed a group of classmates at the title school as they go through life issues. It aired in the States on PBS, and a lot of us watched it in Health class. All the kids on the show had crazy '80s hair. Two summers ago, Tim lived with me as Dave's sublet. Tim watched Degrassi: The Next Generation a lot. I watched at first as camp, then I started to care about the characters, and now it's only like, my favorite show ever. TNG is back at the old school, and the idea is that all the "old school" characters are parents of present-day Degrassi students. Some of those old schoolers are on now as their old selves. The writers do an awesome job with some damn good kid actors. The issues range from "I'm sick of Liberty always winning the science fair" to "Rick brought a gun to school, injuring two and killing himself."

The saga aspect makes it really hard to explain to newcomers, but it basically goes as such: Craig and Ash were dating on and off, but he cheated with Manny, which resulted in abortion, which was never aired in the US, even though JT was crushing on her, which he totally blew when she saw him using his penis pump, which was the idea of Toby, who....oh screw it....go here: timeline.

Anyway, the new season is going to be hard core, and Old School will be harder than hard core, but I will use Ellie's words from tonight and venture that all of these episodes will make "the greatest, most rockingest party ever." Word, Ellie.

posted by Matt the Great @ 10/09/2005