I´ll try to only do a short round of explanations for the season, since there´s other fun extras for you to get stuck into. In my own opinion, the series ended on a high note with the best season of the bunch. Aftermath was from the beginning intended to be my version of writing school and while there are some parts in the early seasons that make me cringe and would have been written better, if I´d written them now, as a whole I´m proud of what I did with it. If you´d told me a year ago, when I posted the first episodes, that it would be approaching 7500 views and still going strong now, I´m not sure I would have believed you. It has been an at times almost overwhelming success and I hope to be able to create another series, that has the kind of mass appeal, it apparently has with people. Anyway, on with the explanations for season 9!

The music this season: The first episode featured the hip-hop summer classic "Summertime" by Will Smith and Jazzy Jeff, back when Will was still the Fresh Prince. It was just a summer montage and to me it´s not really summer, until I´ve chilled out to this one in the sun with a cold drink.

The second episode needed a song about feeling sorry for what you´ve done and "Hard for me to say I´m sorry" by Chicago fit the bill perfectly. It also puts Peter Cetera, one of the best singers of the 70´s, in the series and that´s never a bad thing.

After a montage free episode 3, where one wouldn´t have been fitting, 90´s Riot Grrrl band Hole made their second appearance in the series with what was their biggest hit "Doll Parts", a slow ballad about a girl who can´t find happiness and hates her life. It wasn´t that bad for the kids here, but they were still going through tough times and the misery in Courtney Love´s vocals reflected that nicely.

Episode 5 needed a sexy song and it just so happened that I was writing it on a day, where I felt like listening to some old school hip hop and came across this one thanks to YouTube´s algorithms. The girls in Salt N Pepa were kind of like the Nicki Minaj or Cardi B of the 80´s, 90´s and early 2000´s in the way the rapped about sex, but they did it in a much more fun and not to mention funkier way. The movie "Deadpool" would forever immortalize this song and it´s still both fun lyrically and to dance to, like most of their songs are.

Episode 6 needed a song for a competition scene, so I took the most classic song for a scene like this. "You´re the best around" was most famously used in the competition scenes in the first "Karate Kid" movie and has been used in dozens of training montages since, often ones with a comedic twist. It´s one of those songs that´s so 80´s and corny, that I can´t help liking it! It´s like the song version of "16 Candles", that you know you shouldn´t like, but do anyway.

Episode 7 had a few songs in it, the first being Talia singing a few lines of the extremely dark humored "I Saw Your Mommy" by the legendary skater/hardcore punk band Suicidal Tendencies. I saw them live back in 1993 when I was 15 in what was one of the most insane concerts, I´ll ever go to. I feel sorry for those of you, who weren´t around for what it was like to go to the crazy rock concerts of the 90´s, when I was a teenager. Here it was to show that Talia is more than meets the eye and a precursor for what was to come with her. The second song used was the Prince song "Let´s Go Crazy", one of the best party rock songs ever written and just another piece of evidence as to what kind of a once in a generation type of talent he was. The last one was "I hate myself for loving you" and the inspiration for using this one was from a storyline in "Dawson´s Creek", where Joey Potter (who Lisa got her last name from) joins a rock band as a singer and has a relationship with the hot bad-boy bass player, who´s also the back-up singer. They play this song in one of the scenes with them, where they do it as a duet with underlying tones to it, which is the same thing I did here.

There wasn´t much of a montage in episode 8, but the short one was about Deco being the best on the soccer team, so Queen´s "Another One Bites the Dust" fit it pretty well. In episode 9 however, I needed an extremely strong song to go along with the images that followed the shooting. My first choice was U2´s "Sunday Bloody Sunday", but I decided to go with a much more sombre song, Pearl Jam´s masterpiece of a song "Indifference", that closed out "Vs", which to me is arguably the best rock album of all time. The main line in the song is the one that goes "How much difference does it make?", asking the question of what could have been done to stop the tragedy from happening. As for montages, that one ranks up there as my favorite dramatic ones I´ve done.

We went right from episode 6 having a sad song at the end to another sad masterpiece beginning the "Sad But True" episodes. Annie Lennox (who´s best remembered as lead singer of the Eurythmics) had a big hit with this ballad about a person, who´s wondering what they did wrong to make their lover stop loving them. She sang it amazingly and there´s no other song that could have fit the montage better. I rarely do two montages in an episode, but this one needed an ending one too, to further drive home the impact of Deco´s death on his friends. "Say Hello 2 Heaven" was written by Chris Cornell (from Soundgarden and Audioslave) to help him deal with the death of his best friend and former room mate Andrew Wood (lead singer from the band Mother Love Bone), who tragically died from a heroin overdose on March 19, 1990 at the young age of 24, right before his band were about to release their major label debut album. Chris would then get together with two of the remaining band members and form the short lived Temple of the Dog, named after one of Andrew´s song lyrics, to record some songs he´d written to deal with their friend´s sudden death. This would eventually lead to the formation of Pearl Jam. It´s an incredibly beautiful song, that´s sung fantastically by Chris Cornell and there´s many lines in it that fit Deco perfectly, especially the one that goes "He came from an island and died from the streets".

Moving on to episode 11, we had a montage about looking for someone, so I chose the old A-Ha song "Hunting High and Low" (a big hit from the mid 80´s) to symbolize it. Norwegian band A-Ha were always suppliers of great music in the 80´s and had one of the best singers in pop history in Morten Haarket. This one was arguably their best song, even if "Take on me" is the one most people remember from them.

In the montage for episode 12, I did something I hadn´t done before. I threw a song by a couple of my old friends in, that was a small hit in parts of Europe when it came out. When I was living in my hometown, I both shared a rehearsal room with these guys and my ex-girlfriend was close with them, so we used to go to the same parties all the time back in the day. Since the episode was about a "Secret Lover" and that was the name of the song, it fit the montage perfectly. If you feel like checking them out, you should also check out their band Superheroes, that they had more success with. Thomas Troelsen (the singer) also produced and sang on the chorus of "Move Your Feet", which was a big dance hit in 2003 for the brother duo Junior Senior and has since produced for many big names like Major Lazer and Pitbull, as well as made music for TV series like Gossip Girl. It´s kind of funny to think that one of the guys I used to party with all the time in our small town actually made it in the music business.

Bruce Springsteen´s "The Wresler" might at first glance seem like a strange song to follow Snake on his "last ride" from Degrassi, but that´s only until you hear the song. It´s about a guy who has been beaten, broken and put through life´s wringer, but is still hanging in there because he doesn´t know what else to do with himself. Bruce´s songs sometimes hit me hard, especially now that I´m becoming older and I´m getting the deeper meaning in them. Not only was "The Wrestler" one of the best movies, I´ve ever seen. This song, which Bruce gave to producer Darren Aronofsky for free, since he loved the script and Aronofsky (who had lost investors because he refused to fire Mickey Rourke due to his horrible reputaion) had run out of money, served as the cherry on the sundae. It takes a lot for a movie to make a grown man cry, but I´m not ashamed to say that I wept like a baby at the end of that one.

Skipping the montage in the next episode (which was the documentary one), the next was in episode 15 (which was incorrectly called episode 12, when I posted it. That has been corrected now). It was a simple montage about Darcy being a working girl, so why not use the classic "Working Girl Song", "9 to 5" by good old Dolly. A little corny, I know, but if it fits, then it fits. "Manic Monday" by The Bangles could have been another choice, if I hadn´t already used it for a Manny montage in season 1.

I always tried to shift it up with what time period and what music styles i used in the series and one of the really good ones, that´s sort of been forgotten is the late 80´s/early to mid 90´s Indie pop scene, which produced some really great music that still holds up today. If you want to hear some of the best of it, check out bands like Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians, 10.000 Maniacs, Lemonheads, The Replacements, The Cowboy Junkies or the band I chose here, Scottish band Del Amitri with their by far biggest hit "Roll Over Me". I wanted a nice up-beat and uncomplicated song for the montage of Paige and Chrissy in L.A, which was where it fit in perfectly. Lisa´s song "Skanky Slut" was of my own creation.

The next episode needed another light hearted song to fit the montage of Chrissy and her new frienemies on the set of the TV series. "She Hates Me" by Puddle of Mudd is about as silly as a pop rock song can get, about a girl who turned into a nightmare girlfriend, who now hates the singer. Still you can´t deny that it´s fun and a real "Bang your fist in the air" chorus, if there ever was one! There has to be room for silly in music too. It can´t be serious all the time. Having Chrissy sing "Wendy´s Cussing Song" from South Park was just for the fun of it and because it´s hella funny. I hope that no big corporations ever read this series, or they´ll sue the crap out of me for all the material I´ve downright stolen from them! Please don´t tell on me!

Episode 18 was Lisa´s last episode, where she was the star, so naturally it had involve a lot of great music, since Lisa has always been the music girl of the series. First up was the Queen and David Bowie all-time classic "Under Pressure", without a doubt one of the best rock songs ever written. If you can hear that song and not love it, then you should see a doctor. It was for a montage of the students doing their finals, something I actually liked for the most part and was usually how I salvaged my grade for the year, after months of slacking off. Let´s just say that back in school, I was a big time Jamie in my approach to it! Next up for the concert scene was one of the first songs I learned on guitar, "It´s a Long Way to the Top (if you wanna Rock N Roll)" by the legends themselves AC/DC, from their absolute prime when Bon Scott was one of the greatest front men in rock. It was a send-off song for Lisa, so it couldn´t have fit better. You can also call it a tribute to the movie "School of Rock" (a total guilty pleasure of mine, even if it´s a kid´s movie) that no doubt subconsciously played into the creation of Lisa´s character. Lastly for the big romantic scene, I needed a super romantic song and I´ve always been a sucker for Huey Lewis and the News. Their music is kind of corny, but song with such soul that I feel it to my bones every time I hear it. "If This Is It" was one of their biggest hits, a song about a couple who are drifting apart, that could be changed into how I used it here. Change a few "Hims" to "Hers" and it made for a perfect song to fit the scene.

Going into the last episode with the kids, I was wrecking my head to find a song that wasn´t just suitable but also good enough to send the kids off to their futures. Having already used a lot of them didn´t make the job easier, but there was always this song, that I absolutely loved when it came out and still do today. The story of how a 17 year old Michelle Branch in 2002 ended up singing on one of biggest hit songs of the year with one of the biggest Latin American stars in music history is kind of wild. She had released her first album, but was still more or less a normal High School girl, since it hadn´t exactly hit it big. Unbeknownst to her, in a record studio in Los Angeles, producer Greg Alexander (former lead singer of The New Radicals) and Carlos Santana had a problem. They´d first recorded it with Alexander (which was the original plan) but decided to go with a woman in stead and recorded it with Tina Turner. Tina however didn´t want to make a music video or public appearances, so they were left trying to find a singer in a hurry. It was Alexander who suggested that they gave Michelle a chance. Michelle at first thought that her agent was pranking her, when he said that they wanted her, but he was dead serious. Having absolutely nothing to lose, she just went in to that studio and gave it all she had in that small 17 year old body of hers. It´s needless to say, that she blew them away, Cut to less than a year later and she was performing it at the Superbowl pre-game show in front of 70 thousand people and untold millions more watching on TV! Talk about a turnaround for a normal High School girl! She still makes awesome music and is worth checking out, if you like top class pop rock.

The last episode(s) weren´t that heavy on music, but it still played a part, as it had from the beginning of the series. "All Outta Love" by Air Supply is a classic heartbreak song and it fit Marisol´s situation here and could also be seen as being used ironically, since it was borderling on being over the top sappy, like the song is. Chumbawamba (maybe the biggest one hit wonder ever) and their classic drinking song "Tubthumping" made for a fun song to use in Zig and Jay´s drinking montage. It might not sound familiar going by the title, but I can guarantee that you´ve heard it at some point in your life. Then there was the big question on which song to end it on and the Hawaii script had it ending with Jay and Maya doing a duet of another Huey Lewis song "Stuck With You", which made for a cute scene, but it didn´t feel right after all. "Change" by Blind Melon has since the beginning been a symbol of the person Maya had turned into and therefore fit perfectly for the season finale of season 1. Doing it with these re-written lyrics that show how she´s managed to fight through everything she´s been through to come out on top at the end, made it feel like she had come full circle. The whole series started with her and it needed to end on her too.

Putting Suey and Sally together: It´s probably a good thing that I´m ending it until it turns into "The L-Word", with as many coming out´s, as we´ve had! At that time, when I wrote the first episode, I didn´t know how I was going to end Lisa´s story, except for her leaving for New York. That part has been planned for a long time. If I had planned on her and Julie together, I might not have had Sally and Suey as a couple. They had their fun and cute moments during the season and I guess, I was trying to recapture the magic I had with Suey and Lisa in earlier seasons. They didn´t quite get there, because there wasn´t as much time to develop them, as there was with Lisa and Suey, but I still liked them as a couple.

Bringing Taryn in and the bullying storyline: Often the inspiration for episodes has come from re-watching old episodes of Degrassi on YouTube. If they hadn´t posted those episodes, then this series never would have happened, so send a little thank you their way. The inspiration for these was of course the infamous Rick Murray episodes, the ones in season 4 in particular. Since I started writing the series, I´ve wanted to do some kind of re-visit to that story in the series, but it took me a while to figure out how to do it in the best way. Taryn was a symbol of someone, who could have become the next Rick, but ended up not letting her hatred get the better of her. Episode two and three are very connected and two of my favorite episodes in the entire series. I only touched lightly on bullying in season 1 and here and there throughout, but never in a more hardcore storyline like this one. The plan was to give Taryn (who was named after a troubled girl from Nighmare on Elm Street 3) some more stories throughout the season, but there just wasn´t room for it, with everything else I knew, I wanted in there.

Talia becoming more of a character: My idea with Talia originally was to give her a storyline, that was very reminiscent of Manny in season 3, when she becomes pregnant. I´m glad I decided not to, because the season already had enough drama, as it was. Putting in more would be overkill and if I was going to do a storyline like that, it wouldn´t make sense to do it at the end of the series, where we don´t really get to see the consequences. Making her the youngest child of Mia and the only child of both Peter and Mia only made her even more fun to play around with. If a series 10 is made some day, she´ll be one of the main characters. I originally didn´t like Peter much the first time I saw the series, but he grew on me with subsequent watches, so I decided to give him some retribution here and give him at least the beginning of a happy ending with Darcy.

The Sexual Healing episode: One of the fun things about the series as it´s progressed, was that I could keep pushing the limits with Chrissy and the gang. This one was classic R-Rated comedy and I hope you got a good laugh out of it. With the heavier episodes that were to come, I wanted a more light hearted episode to lead up to them, so things wouldn´t get too depressing.

Jamie and Simon this season: Jamie and Simon´s dynamics as friends has been one of the joys to write and pretty much goes back to how me and my friends were. Their respective journeys this season made for an interesting twist to their ongoing story, I thought. Jamie was always seen as the one, who would go on to skating glory, so taking that away from him and handing it over to Simon, who´s been in his shadow for years in that aspect, gave me something new to play around with for his character. Simon went through a lot this season, with taking over for Jamie, Deco´s death and so on. It would have been so easy for me to fixate the character on his sexuality, so I´m a little proud of myself, that I avoided the temptation and gave him a wide variety of stories over the seasons.

The Ending to Lisa´s Story: Lisa has been my girl as much as Chrissy has, ever since I came up with the characters. At that time, what I had wasn´t much and pretty much consisted of this:

Chrissy´s friend, who´s loosely based on yourself. Will find out that she´s gay someday.

That´s pretty much it and from that she evolved into what I in my own humble opinion, think is one of the most layered characters in all of Degrassi. Part of this is of course, that she had more screentime than any other character, aside from perhaps Emma in Next Generation. She had to have a special ending to her story and the movie "Fame" is one of my favorite movies from the early 80´s. If you haven´t seen it, just know that it still holds up today. The idea of Lisa in that type of creative environment, where she can really be allowed to flourish, made for an ending, that felt right to me. Putting her with Julie at the end was both a surprise twist and a callback to the early seasons, where those two girls used to hang out all the time. I wanted the endings to be a mix of bittersweet and happy, but there was never any doubt in my mind, that Lisa should get a happy one.

The "War (What is it good for?)" episodes: Looking back, I wish I hadn´t warned you that a character would die, since it took some of the shock effect of the episodes away. The soccer coach was more or less based on the coach for the Cobra Kai club, from "Karate Kid" fame and a big part of the inspiration for the episodes. I knew, that I had to have a school shooting at some point, so it was only a matter of how to do it in the best way. Rodney wasn´t created initially to fit the role, but the closer I got to writng it, the more it became apparent, that he had to be the guy, given his fixation on control and what would happen, when he lost that control. Then the question was, who was going to die? I played around with many ideas in my head, but two that were clear had to be there were the coach and Deco. It had to be him, so it would have the biggest emotional impact on the readers. If there´s any members of the LGBTQ community who are reading this and are upset, that I killed off a main homosexual character, know that it was only done for the sake of how effectful the story would be and what I could build from the fall out from it. As a writer, I have to sometimes detract myself for what I personally want for the character and put the story first. I´m sure you wouldn´t want in otherwise.

The "Sad But True" episodes: One of the things Degrassi did best in my opinion was the follow up episodes to the Rick Murray shooting. Sean and Emma both dealing with PTSD and survivors guilt was very well written, but one of my favorite parts was Rick´s funeral, when Toby´s friends show up to pay their respects to Rick´s mom. That one moment humanized Rick and made the tragedy of what happened so much easier to comprehend as a viewer. I was hoping to catch some of the same feeling with these episodes and while they turned out pretty good, I didn´t quite get there. I´m pretty sure that Deco was a fan favorite of the later seasons and he was one of my favorite characters to write too. It was therefore important to me, that he got the kind of send-off he deserved.

Snake´s goodbye to Degrassi: I´d been searching for a while for the perfect storyline for Snake, since he had been in the series all along in a supporting role. A problem with that is that they already did a lot of good ones in the series. One of the easy things to play on was his love of the school and the shooting made for a perfect excuse to bring this into play. Him handing over the baton to Marco and the front lawn party in his honor was the right way to do it and gave a feeling of his character coming full circle, from when we met up with him again in Next Generation. There´s no doubt that he holds a special place in my heart along with Joey and the rest of that gang. I had another idea for the episode, where he ended up keeping his job and even wrote an entire episode to that effect, that got scrapped. This version worked much better, than the other one would have.

The "Memories" episode: Coming up with original ideas, the series hasn´t done before isn´t easy and I sort of stole this idea from the 90´s cult classic "Reality Bites", where part of the movie is shown as a documentary, that Jeanine Garafalo´s character is making about herself and her roommates, who are like a family to her. Degrassi is like one big family too, so Eli and Imogen making this documentary about it made for a nice change of pace and something different. They were two of my favorite characters and bringing them back together in the final scene was a fun ending to their story. It also gave me an excuse to reunite some old friends like Alli with Clare and Jenna and so on.

Chrissy´s budding acting career: There were a few different influences for this story. The biggest one was the beginning of the career of actress Sheryl Lee. Sheryl in 1989 was a normal 19 year old college student in Seattle, who was in an amateur theatre company and had signed on to be an extra in movies and TV with a talent agency, so she could make a little extra pocket money to party in the weekend for. Through this, she wound up being chosen to play the part of Laura Palmer on Twin Peaks, one of the biggest and most iconic TV shows of the early 90´s. Originally this only meant lying on a beach wrapped in plastic for an afternoon, while others acted around her. Laura (or Sheryl) at this time was never meant to feature in any other way than as a murder victim to build the mystery around. Then the writers (Mark Frost and David Lynch) had a plot hole to fix, so she was called back to do extra shots, a home video that helps crack the investigation wide open. Does that sound familiar? David Lynch and Mark Frost fell so much in love with her performance just playing to the camera without audio, that they not only created a character for her (Laura´s almost identical cousin Maddie, that was clearly just Sheryl in a black wig with glasses on), but also made Laura come to life again in the form of flashbacks and the prequel movie "Fire Walk With Me", where Sheryl gave the performance of a lifetime, playing the troubled teenager Laura in what we already know will be her last days, until she´s murdered. She would reprise the role 25 years later in the very long awaited 3rd season and has had quite a good career, even if she´ll always in some way be identified with Laura. There were stories from other actors and actresses that I based it on, but this has already gone on for too long, so I´ll end it here. Mewes was just put in there because he´s Mewes and I can´t help liking the guy. That both Kevin Smith and Jay Mewes exist in the same world as Silent Bob and Jay, I´ll put in there with Manny and Cassie Steele, plus Jimmy and Drake existing the same world, as something we´ll have to chuck off as a glitch in the matrix. Either that or a wizard did it.

The last episodes with the kids: To me, they´re still kids, even if they´ve grown up a lot since the start of the story. It´s been a labor of love to write them and ending their stories in the right way was important to me. With Lisa, it had to be some grand romantic moment and since music had been such a central part of Lisa´s character, it had to include music. Whose music is better for a situation like this than Huey Lewis and his buddies in The News? As I always say, Huey believes in love and I believe in Huey! It made for a very cute moment between the two girls and felt like a perfect ending to their respective stories. A central part of Chrissy´s character was her fear of growing up too soon, always being a step or two behind her friends, when it came to the adult stuff (excluding her early drinking debut), so the end to her story had to be her having sex, as a symbol of her finally feeling like a grown up, who´s ready to move into the adult stage of her life.

The Finale: This was extremely hard to write, because I didn´t want to Dexter/X-Files/Game of Thrones/Lost/Hannibal (to name a few) it and have it feel like it ended on a disappointment. As I´ve mentioned, the first version was in the future with the kids. I wont´disclose any more details, since it could give away spoilers for future possible episodes. It gave me something to build on though and I can convert it to one of my other series, so it wasn´t completely wasted work. The many dozens of hours I spent toiling over the second version more or less was. Part of the reason why I took so long to write the finale, was because I´d already put so much work into it and wanted desperately for it to work. When I decided to move it to Toronto, most of the stories came to me in an instant. I wanted the series to end in a light hearted way, so I put romance at the center and just went with it from there. Originally (in the Hawaii script) Mikey was the son of Chantay and Jay, from a one night stand they had years earlier and Danny was Chantay´s husband. The problem here was how to amp up the drama from it and that set-up wasn´t working in that apect. Changing it to being Maya and Zig´s made for a much more interesting story and once I really got it planned out in my head, I wrote it all in twenty hours or so. It felt to me like the right way to end it and I hope you feel the same way.

MY TOP 10´S

My Favorite Storylines:

1. Maya´s Story in season 1 to 6.

I´m not sure I ever topped this one, as far as the quality of the drama and the stories within it goes. There´s small things I would change in retrospect, but as a whole I liked it a whole lot. It was a problem finding things that were just as interesting for her afterwards, which is a big part of why she became more and more of a side character in later seasons.

2. Lisa and Suey´s relationship.

These two were so fun to write and the slow burn of the storyline, going from season 3 to 6 made it more satisfying, when they finally became a couple. The ending was planned from the beginning and even though I second guessed myself a few times, I think it was the right decision.

3. Emma and Spinner´s break up.

This was really what fueled the drama in season one and part of season 2, giving the series a good back bone to start with. Emma and Spinner weren´t meant to stay together and were much better off with how things ended up.

4. Manny´s journey.

Manny was always one of my favorites in the original series, so I wanted to give her the perfect life, for where she is now. Her being an actress was glamorous as an idea, but Manny was always the perfect friend and helper, whenever anyone needed it, so it was better for ther to end up this way.

5. Chrissy and Jamie´s relationship.

This was always going to be at the center of the kid´s storylines and I did my best to make them a younger representaion of Emma and Sean, rather than a copy of them. They went through their share, but finally got each other in the end, just like Emma and Sean should have.

6. The shooting in season 9.

This was one I held off with for a long time, mainly because I´d already had Charlie almost die in season 3, when he was shot. It had to be a character that had been throughly built up, who did it and I didn´t want it to be too similar to the Rick Murray storyline from the series. Having to think outside the box, was where the idea of teacher or coach (inspired by the coach (also named Kreese) from the "Karate Kid" movies and "Cobra Kai" TV series) came to be.

7. The Hollingsworth saga.

There´s definitely things, I would change in this one. As a whole, though, I thought it made for an interesting read. The plan was to do a story, that had cliffhanger after cliffhanger, to keep the reader interested and it had plenty of those. The ending could have been better perhaps and maybe I should have had either Hunter or Esme be killed, but it ended on a high note, to take them into the coming seasons.

8. The series within the series.

It´s not easy to come up with new ideas for a series, that´s already done close to everything, before you´ve even started. There´s probably other series that have done it before this, but one of my main inspirations was a low budget movie from the mid 90´s called "Living in Oblivion" about a desperate director (played by Steve Buscemi) trying to shoot his indie movie, despite everything going wrong and his cheaply hired crew and actors for the most part being terrible at their jobs. It also has Peter Dinklage (Tyrion from "Game of Thrones") in a small (no pun intended) but absolutely hilarious role, that´s available on YouTube, if you want to check it out.

9. Paige´s journey.

While not as prominently featured as Manny´s, since it took longer to get her out of LA, I still liked Paige´s journey a lot too. From the hopelessly single girl in the beginning, to being a mom to four kids, if you include Sally and a much more mature woman, who´s at ease with herself, than she was when she left the series. I still tried to make sure, that the old Paige was still there though and I hope, you think that I achieved that.

10. Regina´s journey.

It´s always gonna be hard to cut it down to ten, but I´m very pleased with her journey from a stereotypical mean girl, to how she ended the series as a very multi-dimensional character. I love a good redemption story arc and her growing little by little into a sensible adult, made for a good story, I thought. Her bullying storylines, where she became friends with Carla and made peace with Taryn add into it too, because I really liked those.

Almost Made the List:

Jamie and Allison at the X-Games

Charlie and Taylor losing their child

The band stuff

The "Friendship Club"

Deb´s journey

My Favorite Couples:

1. Lisa and Suey.

I´ve already touched on them and the combination of everything plus how it ended for them, makes them my favorite.

2. Maya and Jay.

I knew that everyone would be expecting Jay and Manny to stay together, which is part of why they didn´t end up together. What Maya and Jay became was a fun couple to write and an easy source for comedy. It´s one of those where people maybe didn´t see them as an obvious couple, but their adult personalities matched perfectly.

3. Chrissy and Jamie.

Again, I´ve already touched on them, but their love story was a big part of the core of the kid´s stories for a long time. Maybe I regret a little, that I broke them up the first time, as soon as I did, but I wouldn´t change any of it, looking back on it.

4. Lola and Zoe.

They were a very fun couple to write too and played a huge part in the story in the beginning in particular. Their stories were about them growing from these two late 20´s girls, who are still trying to find their places in the world, to a pair of relatively young parents, who have their lives in order and have become adults, while still keeping what made them lovable to begin with. If you compare them to my parents, then my mom is definitely the Zoe and my dad is the Lola of their relationship.

5. Regina and Deco

This was a couple I was a lot in doubt about, when the idea first came to me, but it ended up being the perfect decision to keep both of their characters interesting. The tragic end and how that all came together made for a good ending, with it adding to the tragedy, how hurt both Regina and Simon were over it. There had to be at least one love story, that ended in pure tragedy and this was it.

6. Lisa and Nick.

Lisa makes her second appearance, through her relationship with Nick. I put these two through the wringer with their up´s and down´s and break up´s and such. It was around midway through writing season 7 though, that I decided that Lisa should end up with someone else and I also felt like they had reached the end of their rope, as far as which stories I could tell with them without repeating myself.

7. Emma and Sean.

They were never really the focal point after season one, but their stories still worked very well, as far as I see it. The Wedding episode is the way I see it, the biggest episode of the series, along with the first and the last episode. They took more of a backseat role in later seasons, as Paige took over as main advice giver to Chrissy, but they were still one of the highlights in everything, they were in.

8. Hannah and Seb.

Two tragic characters being put together and making each other´s lives better, always makes for a nice feel good story. Most series would have had Seb sent off to rehab or something like that, but I wanted him to get out of his past life, thanks to willpower and the power of love. They weren´t one of the major couples, but I still like what I did with them.

9. Manny and Eddy.

Since Manny wasn´t gonna end up with Jay, she needed another guy to have a love story with. Their relationship over the seasons has always been strong and I like the way, they´ve always supported each other. I could have done more stories with them and perhaps I should have, but they still belong in my top 10.

10. Simon and Deco.

This was another interesting couple to write. I´m as straight as I can be, which might be why you didn´t see any big sex scenes or anything like that between them and I decided to leave that to the imagination of the reader. They still had an interesting story in my opinion and it helped push Simon from slowly becoming a bit character, to being one of the most important ones.

Almost Made the List:

Rodney and Tina

Paige and Spinner

Jamie and Allison

Julie and Jack

Sally and Suey

My Favorite Original Characters:

1. Lisa.

As you can tell, this is a very Lisa friendly bunch of lists. Is she the nicest girl in the world? You tell me.

2. Deco.

The series needed a fresh spark, when Deco came in and that´s exactly what he brought to the series. I had already planned that he would be killed off much earlier, but I´m glad that I waited until I did. Was he a guardian angel or something like that? I´ll let you decide on your own, but I wrote him to be a stand up guy, I can say that much.

3. Chrissy.

She was always going to be a central character from her relation to Spinner and Emma alone, but she was in herself one of the easiest characters to write.

4. Suey.

As I´ve already said, she was in my favorite relationship and was one of the easiest characters to come up with stories for, especially when she was with Lisa.

5. Jamie.

He was the Sean of the series, but in his own special way. I´m sure, there´s plenty of girls, who wouldn´t mind having a Jamie of their own. Even if he´s gonna dress like a 12 year old until he dies, as Simon put it.

6. Regina.

She became one of the main characters in the last seasons and had several of the most interesting character arcs in the later part of the series. When I come up with character, it´s rarely with any long term plans, mostly going by how it feels to write them. Regina wasn´t meant to be in more than one or two storylines based around Hannah, but it was how easy and fun it felt to write her, that´s the real reason why she ended up as a main character.

7. Eddy.

There´s only two adult characters on this list, mainly because most of the adult characters weren´t OC´s. He was a perfect match for Manny and loosely based on myself, so of course, I would like him!

8. Julie.

I have a lot of scrapped ideas with Julie, just because I didn´t want to put too much of her in the series. She was a lovable girl and especially her relationship and later close friendship with Simon was a nice addition to the series. Her ending up with Lisa, was a surprise element of the kind, you need to keep it interesting sometimes and because she´d been so unlucky in love, I wanted her story to have a happy ending.

9. Amy.

I thought her story gave a nice feel good element to the series and she was a big element, when it came to the Hollingsworth´s and Maya´s jail time in season 2. Like Regina, she was only meant to feature in one story, that being the prison one, but it was how fun she was to write that made me turn her into a main character- Her and Frankie´s friendship was very cute too. I never got around to exploring her family, even if I had planned to as part of the Hollingsworth Saga and that´s perhaps what I regret most not doing with her.

10. Simon.

10th place is between him and Nick, but I´m giving it to Simon, because he was in the series longer. I had no idea, where I would take him, Jack and Jamie when I first came up with them, but I think he became both an interesting and one of the most important characters. Often when you see gay male characters, like Tristan or Marco in the original series for instance, their sexuality becomes almost all they are as characters. They both became great characters, but it was a card they played a little too often with them in my opinion, so I tried my best to still give him other things to do, that would be just as interesting, same as with Deco.

Almost Made the List:

Nick

Sally

Allison

Deb

Jack

My Biggest Regrets:

1. Putting in too many characters.

This is by far the biggest one. At one point, I think we were up to over 20 regular characters and that´s just way too many, when you have to fit all of them in somehow. It hurt the bigger stories and I wish, I´d shown more moderation, looking back on it.

2. Not spending more time on Charlie and Taylor´s lost baby.

This could have been better than it was and I dropped the ball on it. At the time, I felt like every episode should have a story with the adults and one with the kids, which meant that some stories didn´t get the time they deserved. This was clearly one of them. Charlie´s suicide attempt was one of the best moments in the series, but I should have had more lead up to it.

3. Eli, Paige and Miles´ movie.

I´ve mentioned before, that I wasn´t happy with how this one turned out and it´s the one storyline, I would make the most changes to. It had too many characters, the story was too weak and I shouldn´t have brought in Esme, Tristan and Zig. They can´t all be winners.

4. Aborting Lisa´s pregnancy story (no pun intended).

The problem here was having too many pregnancy storylines right in a row, which I hadn´t considered enough before I posted it. You had Manny´s and Lola´s, meaning that a 3rd would be one too many. It could have been good, but ended in kind of a disappointing way, if you ask me.

5. Making Summer Dreams into three episodes in stead of two.

Talking about episodes that ended up being a bit on the disappointing side, you have the second part of Paige´s dream story. In all honesty, I should have stuck to just having the Manny one and either not done Paige´s or kept it to one episode. It had some okay moments, but way too much filler in it.

6. Paige and Jonah´s short relationship.

Sometimes you get an idea and it seems great at first. Then the more you think about it, the worse it sounds and that was the case for me here. I´ve become a better writer since I wrote those first seasons and a lot of it is trial and error. They had a couple of good scenes together, but I could have found a better way to get Paige back to Toronto.

7. Breaking Chrissy and Jamie up too soon.

I should have held off for a while with this, but it was a case of wanting to start the season with a storyline, that would grab people from the start. I could have thought of another one, because I clearly hadn´t taken as much advantage of their relationship, as I could and probably should have.

8. Having the Hollingsworth saga be too long.

I liked the story as a whole, but there were parts of it that could have been cut out and it wouldn´t have made any difference at all. That´s never a good thing. A professional writing team probably would have come up with a better ending too.

9. Zoe´s storyline at the law firm.

Talking about stories, that seemed good and ending up being the opposite, there´s this one. I either would have re-written it or cut it out entirely, because I don´t know how to write a lawyer series with my very limited knowledge of the law in Canada. It was in season 1 though, which is why I give myself a bit of a free pass on it.

10. Not ending Ellie´s story in a better way.

The original plan for season 9 was that Ellie would play a big part in it, after the divorce from her domineering husband. I decided to scrap it, since I already had more than enough storylines planned for the season and I wouldn´t be able to give it the time it needed to be told correctly. Therefore it ended up feeling kind of incomplete.

Almost Made the List:

Not utilizing Holly J. more

Not going to 20 episodes per season sooner

Putting in montages in early episodes, when they clearly weren´t needed

The lame ending (or lack there of) to Chrissy and Pete´s budding relationship

Kimmie just kind of disappearing without a trace

My Favorite Episodes:

1. S06E07 - I´m just a man aka. the wedding episode.

This was one of the biggest episodes in the series and I´m very pleased with how it turned out. It could have had a stronger story perhaps, but I still think it out turned out to be among the strongest and most enjoyable episodes in the series, one that was exactly what it was supposed to be.

2. S08E03 - Goodbye to you.

This one had two major stories, Imogen having to bury her dad and Seb and Hannah having sex for the first time. Imogen´s story in this one is probably my one singular favorite storyline in the series. The concept was combining one story about the beginning of life as represented by sex and one about death. It´s in my own opinion the closest I came to writing a perfect episode.

3. S09E08 + 09 - War (What is it good for).

These were the ones that culminated with Deco, Pete, Rodney and Kreese all losing their lives. I was debating whether or not to do a school shooting story, since it´s been done it lots of series by now, but I like the twist I put on it with the teacher and having manipulation as a central element of the story. To me it shows, how far I´ve come since I started, because I wouldn´t have been able to write a story like that, when I started on season 1.

4. S02E03 + 04 - Absolute beginners.

The early episodes had some charming ones among them, even if they were far from perfect. This one had two stories to it, Manny starting on her new career and Chrissy and her friends having their first experiences with boys. It culminated with Chrissy and Jamie´s first kiss, in what can arguably be called the most romantic moment of the entire series. You can sort of say it was my version of Kevin and Winnie´s first kiss on "Golden Years".

5. S04E09 - Last night.

This was the one, where Frankie after a wet night, has to find out what happened the day before and most of all, if she had sex with someone. It was pretty much my version of the "Champagne Supernova" episodes from the Degrassi web series, just based around Frankie and done in a much more adult way. The little tease of her being in a threesome again at the end, made for a nice twist to the ending too, leaving it open ended for once.

6. S01E08 - Crazy for you.

I see this as the first good episode of the series, after a decent start with the first episodes. Manny moves to Toronto, Emma and Sean get busted, we get the first hint of Paige and Spinner ending up together and so on. This was just a jam packed episode with one of the best montages I´ve done to end it. In retrospect I would probably cut some of it out, because it´s too long and there´s a bit too much exposition, but the good parts in the episode more than make up for it.

7. S08E07 - Back in time (episode 100).

I tried to explore every avenue I could in the series, not just as far as stories go, but also as far as ways to tell them. Many of my stories took place over a very short time (some of them only a few hours), so doing one that took place over a multitude of years was another interesting aspect of it for me. In the end, I thought it wound up a good episode and fitting for an episode 100.

8. S06E10 - What you need.

The last episode of the ten episode seasons was also one of my favorites. There´s 3 stories in it. Suey finding out her future and breaking up with Lisa, Becky and her dad coming to terms with their pasts and Esme being worried, that she would win the election for mayor. All three were strong storylines, that had been built up for a while, with a good payoff at the end of all of them. That´s all you can want from a season finale.

9. S05E10 - Epiphany.

The season finale from the season before gets the next spot. It had two storylines in it, the end of the Hollingsworth Saga and Charlie´s suicide attempt. Looking back, I really like Charlie´s story, where as the other one could have ended better than it did. As I´ve said before, I wish I´d done more with Charlie in this season, but this was a well told and highly dramatic story, I thought.

10. This is extreme (the second summer season)

I´m putting these in as one, since it was basically a five in one episode. The storylines of Allison and Jamie in London, Hannah and Seb becoming a couple and so on, made for a good combined story and showed me, that it was the kids more than the adults, I wanted to write about going forward.

Almost Made the List:

S09E20 - THE LONG RUN

DEGRASSI DOES DEGRASSI (3RD SUMMER SEASON)

S03E01 - SECRET

S07E03 - I AM WOMAN PART 1

SUMMER DREAMS EPISODE 1

WHAT WERE YOUR FAVORITES? LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS.

That´s almost it, folks. It´s been a long journey, so just for the hell of it, here´s a silly little skit I came up with to go out on. It´s distinctly non-canon and solely for the fun of it. I hope you´ve had as much fun reading the series as I had writing it, so with this I bid you adieu.

THE LUXURY OF BEING A WRITER

Int. Soundstage.

Me, a 42 year old guy with short brown hair, sideburns and looking damn good, if I do say so myself, is playing piano and doing a very good job at it. Maya and Jay watch me, looking impressed.

Maya:

You´re like a virtuoso!

Me:

I´m not in real life. In real life I can barely play a chord on this thing, but I´ve always wanted to learn.

Jay:

How come you can now, then?

Me:

Duh, Jay! I´m the one writing this! I can write in any power or skill, I want to have. There has to be some advantage to spending all those hours coming up with this stuff!

Jay:

Can I try it?

Me:

I don´t know ...

Jay:

Come on! Just let me write in one thing!

Maya:

I hope it´s not that my clothes disappear!

Jay:

It´s nothing like that honey. Please man, just one thing.

Me:

Oh, alright!

(the following sentence was written by Jay)

Jay turns into Batman!

Immediately Jay is wearing a Batman costume and looking all kinds of cool in it.

Bat-Jay:

How´s this for cool! Huh?

Maya:

You should have asked to be a superhero with actual super powers, if you were gonna turn into one!

Bat-Jay:

Batman has powers! He gets the ladies!

Maya:

We´re married now! You can´t go around chasing after girls in a Batman costume!

Me:

Do you want to see an easier way of getting hot women, Jay?

Ellie instantly appears next to me, dressed sexily and looking very into me.

Ellie:

I always thought you liked Manny better!

Me:

No, I´ve always seen you as her equal, as far as being hot and likable goes.

Ellie:

Why did she get more stories than me then?

Me:

Ehm ...

Ellie:

It doesn´t matter. I know you were gonna write me away from that terrible husband of mine, so we could be together forever, right?

Me (trying to keep a straight face)

Yeah! That was always the plan!

Ellie:

I mean, let´s face it, none of us are getting any younger! If we´re gonna have kids and a house, then we´d better start saving! How much do you have in the bank?

Me:

I don´t know. A few hundred, maybe.

Ellie:

That won´t get us anywhere! We´ll have to start scrimping and saving and you can forget about going on vacation for the next few years, because ever cent will have to go to our wedding and ..

Ellie disappears as soon as she appeared. I breathe a sigh of relief. Manny appears in her stead.

Manny:

Do you want to go somewhere and have wild, untamed monkey sex until we both collapse from exhaustion?

Me:

Yes, I would!

Emma suddenly appears next to me.

Emma:

Can I join you? I´ve always wanted to have sex with Manny and now I have an excuse!

Bat-Jay:

You were Bi-Sexual all along?

Emma:

The signs were all there! I´m surprised, that no one picked up on it!

Me:

The more the merrier! Let´s go, girls!

I take Manny under one arm and Emma under the other and we leave Maya and Bat-Jay to themselves. He looks a little jealous of me, so Maya punches him on the arm.

AS THE OLD SONGS SAYS:

WE´LL MEET AGAIN

DON´T KNOW WHERE, DON´T KNOW WHEN

BUT I KNOW WE´LL MEET AGAIN SOME SUNNY DAY

WITH THAT, IT´S GOODNIGHT FROM THE DANISH GUY!