The long-running high school soap Degrassi: The Next Generation is about to end its run. The Canadian series has aired in the U.S. for 14 seasons, with episodes coming to American audiences via TeenNick. Unfortunately, that partnership is about to end. This weekend, TeenNick announced that Degrassi will come to an end this summer, but fans will get a few more episodes before the series officially comes to a halt.
Here’s what is going to happen. The teen drama is being given a two week-long final season run. The final 12 episodes will begin airing on Monday, July 20 at 9 p.m. ET. Fans can tune in for new episode premieres Monday-Friday at 9 p.m. ET for two weeks. The series will officially end on Friday, July 31 with an hour-long special that will follow the creators of the series, along with fans and, of course, Degrassi cast members. That special is rolling with the title It Goes There: Degrassi’s Most Talked About Moments, which hopefully means cast members from the series’ entire run will appear.
Degrassi is a spinoff of the similarly titled program The Kids of Degrassi Street, which hit the schedule way back in 1979 and was later popularized further with Degrassi High. The fourth series in the franchise, Degrassi: The Next Generation is best known for dealing with tough subjects for teens, including pregnancies, drug abuse, violence, and more, although it dropped The Next Generation part a few years ago. The series is probably most known for spawning the careers of Drake and Nina Dobrev, who went on to have a successful rap career and star as the lead in the CW’s popular hit The Vampire Diaries; Kevin Smith is also notably a fan of the series and has even popped up on the drama.
The new season will follow prom and graduation for the latest batch of graduates. Clare and Eli are committing to raising their baby together, according to TeenNick’s announcement, and Winston’s new musical “Captain Who,” will be going into production. The network also says that to supplement the big episodes, TeenNick will also be announcing Top 10 lists everyday. What I really want to know is whether or not those two weeks will be devoted to Degrassi marathons, as well, as that prospect would make me quite a bit more excited about this two week format, since I was on the Degrassi bandwagon a lot earlier in its run (e.g. back in the days when Rick was misinformed and quite literally shot Jimmy in the back).
While Degrassi is ending this summer, there’s a lot of other good things that are kicking off in the summer of 2015, including the new True Detective lineup and Wet Hot American Summer. You can catch the full summer 2015 TV schedule here. You can also catch Degrassi on Monday through Friday starting on July 20 at 9 p.m. ET. And tune in for that hour-long special on July 31, also at 9 p.m. ET.
