Why did I post this photo? The answer is somewhere below…
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Q) Kary, a while ago you said you think all degrassi fans should at one point write an analysis on a part of the show, so I decided to follow your advice today and write one on ‘Don’t Panic’, which is often referred to as one of the weakest episodes of season 11. If you wouldn’t mind, could you read it and tell me if it changes your mind about anything in the plot? Thanks! :) http://itfeelsgoodbeingbad.tumblr.com/post/24551934536/dont-panic-and-why-its-a-brilliant-addition-to
–whodidity
A) I agree with you on the bulimia aspect of the storyline, about how instead of us showing it develop like they did with Emma we’re seeing someone whose reached a point where they’re managing it, yet the urge to purge still arises for *insert reason here.* It still doesn’t change my thoughts on the episode as a whole though. The issue is this angle still doesn’t overcome the episode’s shortcomings. The focus of the episode is Katie and Marisol’s friendship, and it still comes off as “two new girls fighting over a guy.” At that time they were too new to care about whether or not they’d break up and make up as bff’s. Throw in a Degrassi friendship we’ve had time to be emotionally invested in and things might be different. I still can’t wrap my head around how Marisol had no trouble telling people Katie’s bulimic, then suddenly felt bad when Katie wanted nothing to do with her. I mean for Christ’s sakes it was above and beyond Katie’s biggest secret! With their friendship it’s like the show wanted to create drama, but end things happily ever after between them by the end of the episode. It just seems weird that after all that and the whole school making a massive deal about whether or not Katie was bulimic that her and Marisol’s friendship suddenly went back to what it was as if nothing ever happened.
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Q) Now that season 11 is over, where does it rank in your list of favorite seasons? And do you have an updated list on your favorite couples or are they still the same?
-Annissa
A) The more I think about it, the more I question why we try and compare the current Degrassi seasons as a whole with the seasons from TNG. They’re never going to say it, but let’s be honest: they’re two different series…the look, the feel, the characters, everything. Or at least that’s what I’ve convinced myself. In my head I wonder if a current season could ever outshine Season 3, and I’m not sure the nostalgia factor would ever allow that, no matter how good that season may be. I always wonder how that nostalgia impacts the opinions of how other fans view the show now, especially those who refuse to point out anything good the show may do now because “the old TNG cast and crew did everything better, and that’s that.” I sometimes compare storylines from them (and from Degrassi High). But as I go back and watch old episodes with a super critical eye, as opposed to watching with generic fan eyes as I did when the TNG episodes were actually airing, it’s so much harder coming up with a standard to compare entire TNG seasons to each other, let alone compare them to Seasons 10 and 11.
The irony though is that I find it pretty easy to compare the blocks within Seasons 10 and 11 from best to worst: 1) The Boiling Point, 2) New Beginnings, 3) Now Or Never, 4) In Too Deep. New Beginnings and Now Or Never are really close, with In Too Deep being considered bottom of the barrel.
Oh and as far as couples nothing has really changed, Sellie remains supreme.
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Q) Do you ship Eclare? I’ve always been confused as to whether you are sarcastic about them or you actually enjoy them. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
-Anonymous
A) I don’t like when the networks try to shove them down our throat, like they did during parts of Season 11 (when EClare wasn’t even relevant to anything happening on the show). I do enjoy tweeting sarcastic things about EClare though:
As far as shipping them, I don’t. Then again I don’t ship 99% of the couples on the show because I’m not a big shipper in general. I still stand by my belief that they were one of the most wonderfully-developed couples in Degrassi history when they first started. I need a reason to ship them now though beyond them just “being back together.” If they get back to that point where they were before a plethora of things wore them down and out then we shall see.
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Q) Are you attracted/have you been attracted to any of the degrassi characters/actresses out of every season, including degrassi juniorr high!
-Anonymous
A) Have I ever been attracted to any of the characters? No. My mind never swings that way while watching the show, ever. As far as the actresses go, maybe it’s because I’m an old man (I’m 28), but in my head there’s a big difference between acknowledging someone is attractive and being attracted to them. A lot of them are attractive, but I’m not sitting around thinking about them naked or anything since I don’t tend to get all swoony mcswoon over celebs. I wouldn’t say I’m attracted to any of them because I don’t know any of them personally…and just because they’re on twitter and/or tumblr it doesn’t mean we know them. Personality makes or breaks attraction. But as far as attractiveness is concerned, I think the most attractive are Alicia, Cristine, Shanice and Annie.
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Kary's Degrassi Blog 
I can say with a fair amount of confidence that the current Degrassi will never match Seasons 3-5 of TNG, the fourth season especially. Maybe it’s nostalgia but I felt things were much more organic and the drama much more genuine then. That said, this upcoming season looks interesting.
BTW, Kary, I was wondering. What’s your opinion on Aubrey “Drake” Graham’s work on Degrassi? He’s really the only Degrassi alum who hit it big (besides Nina Dobrev and Shenae Grimes). It’s still surreal watching him as Jimmy. I thought he always performed pretty well, even though he was often overshadowed by Jake Epstein and Daniel Clark.
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Definitely agree.
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The problem Nostalgia glasses give, is that you fail to see the whole picture of any old season. The worst of the worst might stick in your mind, but the overall ‘bad’ eps or ‘poorly handled’ plots fade away leaving only memories of the strongest, best plots.
For me my focus fell on a few characters, so a season’s strength (in my memory) is based on the strength of a few plotlines. Ellie, Spinner, and J.T. being the main ones. So while I have a lot of love for parts of each season, each season also has plots I had little interest in and rather hated (Semma and Crellie being big parts of this, and I didn’t find most J.T. comedy plots entertaining.)
I will say that earlier seasons (1-4, it falls apart around 5 and is dead by 6) had a much more meshed full cast, there was a lot more connections between groups compared to the very segmented casts in Season 9+. Where several characters have next to know interaction with each other. Of course Early seasons followed two grades while current seasons follow three.
But overall, the earlier seasons aren’t better than the new seasons, they just might have a higher hit to miss ratio, but when they missed, they missed just as badly as they do (worse, as it often took a lot more plot time that could have been better spent).
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I believe that people hold TNG’s glory days on way too high of a pedestal. I mean yes, there were some amazing episodes, some probably the best the series has ever had, but there were also some awful episodes and plots back then too.
I find season 4 to be the most overrated season ever, It took a huge quality drop after Secret, imo.
Back around seasons 5 and 6, people were claiming that degrassi jumped the shark with the shooting, and that it could’ve been done way better.
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Another thing the earlier seasons had that’s lacking now is that there were characters that I cared about deeply. People like Craig, Emma, Sean, and even Rick Murray.
Now, the only people I’m interested in that much are Fiona and Bianca.
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Crap, I forgot Paige!
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Kary Is that a season 12 promo pic,if so where is it from?
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I’d have to agree that the nostalgia of earlier years definitely lies the most in Seasons 3 & 4. After having rewatched it a few times, Season 1 was actually kind of… Boring. There were great moments of course, but I find it’s the hardest to sit through. Season 2 picked up greatly, Season 3 was incredible and Season 4 was hella intense. I loved Season 5, it sort of had a different feel to it, but was awesome in its own right. I wouldn’t say there were any bad episodes. I have trouble placing Season 7 because it was all over the place with good and bad, but things definitely died down in Season 6. In a way, it felt like a completely different show. I love Degrassi Goes Hollywood and don’t mind Season 8, but most of it was just laughably tame. I don’t know how to explain it, but Season 9 places high up there for me because it was like a throwback to Season 3. Seasons 10 & 11 were both incredible, but I have to fully rewatch them in order to determine which one was truly better. Tying into what Kary said about two different series, some people don’t seem to understand that we are in the 3rd Generation now. The producers themselves even said that the whole reason it’s now just Degrassi is because the characters are completely fresh and they felt that calling it The Next Next Generation would be redundant. No one (Snake does not count) from Season 1 is still around. It was either the name change or a spin-off, which wouldn’t make much sense since the show didn’t change locations.
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I’m sorry, but it’s like mid-June and we have no promo pictures? WTF? I feel like we haven’t had as much news as we did in the past few seasons. I feel like DeGrassi is about to get its magic back. I read that Brendan Yorke is no longer the head of the writing department. I hope Cole and Ramona bring the greatness back that was Degrassi:TNG.
Season 1 and 2 were just alright. Season 3, 4, 5, and 6 were pretty good seasons. Darcy and Spinner’s storyline really saved Season 7. Season’s 8 and 9 were horrible. Season 10 was great for the first half and the same with season 11. What I’m seeing is the first half of these newer seasons are great, but the second half lacks. Hope they fix that this year.
Anyway, I’m intrigued to see what we have in store in terms of actual drama this season. I’m tired of 24/7 relationships. Even horrible day time soaps have drama. So that’s something I hope the writer’s focused on for Degrassi: Showdown.
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I also just realized that there are 27 major character roles for Season 12. That’s ridiculous. They need to narrow that playing field down to at least no more than 17. And I’m sorry, but Principal Simpson and Ms. Oh can be reduced to recurring status. As can several other major characters like Jake, Mo, Marisol, and even Connor.
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Another great Q&A, I especially enjoyed the q/a regarding the comparison of seasons 10/11 to TNG, simply because I had never looked at it that way & realized just how true it is that there really cannot be a fair comparison between the two “era’s” of Degrassi & Degrassi TNG.
Also, this may not be the place to ask this, but I recently rewatched South of Nowhere & was wondering Kary, what did you think of that show?
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is that picture you used from the Season 12 photoshoot?!
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what new characters do you think have the same personalities as the old characters from the next generation?
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