WHAT IF? - SEASON 4 EXPLANATIONS
Hello and welcome to the explanations for season 4! It´s been a pretty good season in my own opinion with some parts that were really good and others that could have been better.
As far as how the series is doing, there´s still plenty of readers for it with it having hit around 18.700 views on this site so far. The subscriber and favorites count has gone down a little this past season though, but I was more or less expecting that since the characters that came after the OG cast just weren´t as popular as those, who came before them. Many read fan fiction because there´s one or two characters they really like and once they´re gone, they don´t see much point in continuing to read a series like this. That´s perfectly fine with me and I just hope they enjoyed what they read. To those of you who are still hanging in there, a big thanks!
All in all though, I will say that it´s still doing good and as long as the reader numbers are healthy, there´s little reason for me to end the series. I´ve already written the first handful of episodes for season 5, that I so far think are very good. That´s enough rambling from me, so let´s get on with it!
The "What If?" this season: I´ll be 100 % honest here. When I sat down to start to put this season together, I didn´t have a whole lot of ideas for it, except for an idea for how Sean and Emma´s story would play out and the Sav/Holly J pregnancy story. Then I had a PM chat with a user on here that goes by the username Twilightroxas7. They gave me several ideas for storylines, one of which involved Bianca being introduced as JT´s sister and it was really from there, that most of all of the other ideas began to spring, including bringing her other classmates in sooner, than they did in the OG series. If you´re reading this Twilightroxas7, just know that this season wouldn´t have been nearly as good, if it wasn´t for you coming up with that idea!
FUN FACT:
As you probably know, all of the freshman characters weren´t introduced until (in some cases) much later in the OG series. Drew, Eli, Marisol and Bianca joined in season 10, Imogen and Katie season 11, while Mike Dallas was the last to join in season 12. Of course there´s a few other crowd favorites from that grade like Mo, Jake and Fiona who haven´t been introduced here yet, but it is in the plans!
Using more music montages: This is something I used to do a lot in my previous Degrassi series, but stopped with when I started writing this series, in large part because I had run out of good songs to use after so many episodes and not wanting to repeat what I´ve previously done. I´ve always liked montages though as a way to convey a lot of information in a short amount of time, without having to use dialogue to drive it home, which is why I started with them again here, beginning with Eli´s episodes. I´m not a guy, who listens to modern music a whole lot and even when I do, it mostly goes in one ear and out the other, I will admit. Therefor it´s been older songs I´ve used, which I hope is okay with you guys.
FUN FACT:
This also mirrors the real series in how the production values began to go up around this time, thanks to MTV getting involved. In the early seasons of DNG, as much as I love them, you can´t deny that the re-use of music does get a bit cheesy sometimes, with them basically using the same two short pieces nearly every time. There were still episodes that had great scores, like the Rick Murray episodes for example, but most of it was clearly made on the cheap. That´s one of the things I will say got better in the later seasons, that they started using songs from mostly unknown bands and artists, in stead of the same two times ten seconds of music, we´d heard over and over and again and I was honestly getting pretty tired of by that point. In that tradition of using unknowns, I will mainly be using bands and artists that many of you haven´t heard of, while occasionally using a famous artist, like I did with Prince in one episode.
Emma and Sean this season: It was time for those two to make up their minds about the future, Emma in particular after she´d spent the last season "finding herself". This season it was then about them being so scared of losing each other, that it nearly ended with them not ending up together. I of course already knew when I started writing the series, that they were going to end up together (and I think there was a certain female fan, who would have been very disappointed, if they hadn´t), but I couldn´t make it too easy on them, or it wouldn´t have felt as satisfying when they finally had their big romantic "endgame moment", at least as far as their high school time is concerned.
After that, it was only about finding the right song for it and since The Barenaked Ladies have a tie in to the show, with lead singer Ed Robertson playing a music teacher in seasons 8 and 9, them having been mentioned in regards to Craig´s musician storylines in season 2 in this series and them being one of Canada´s most successful bands at that time, using one of their songs made perfect sense to me. I´ve always liked them since I first heard them sometime back in the 90´s and I thought that "If I Had a Million Dollars" was a charming little song, that also fit Sean and Emma just right here.
FUN FACT:
It´s not a Degrassi fun fact, but still a fun little tidbit about the song. It was the first song that two founding members wrote together, when they were both camp counsellors at a music summer camp. One of them came up with the song´s simple chord structure for fun and then came up with some silly lyrics on the spot about one thing after another that he would buy, if he had a million dollars. They then came up with a more solid set of lyrics for it, while still keeping the basic idea for the song. It´s still a crowd favorite at their shows to this day.
The Sav and Holly J pregnancy storyline: The big inspiration for this one came from two storylines from a couple of the big YA series of the 90´s/early 2000´s. First off, there´s the Brenda/Dylan/Kelly drama from Beverly Hills 90210, where Brenda goes away to spend the summer studying in France and while she´s away, her ex-boyfriend (that things are still up in the air with) and her best friend start hooking up behind her back. The second one was the Dawson/Joey/Pacey storyline from Dawson´s Creek, where Joey and Pacey, despite knowing that Dawson will get hurt, fall in love with one another. Add to that the "Clashes of the Cultures" involved and I thought it made for a both interesting and original story with all of the layers, that were added to it and how many characters all played their little part in it.
FUN FACT:
Later in the season, there was a "Hidden Homage" to what many consider to be the OG teen abortion storyline. It´s in the episode, where Danny has an attractive and slightly flirty co-worker named Stacey. The Stacey she was named after and based on was the character Stacey Hamilton from the 1982 movie "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", played by a then 19 year old Jennifer Jason Leigh, who has since become one of the most respected actresses in Hollywood. In the movie, Stacey, a rather innocent 16 year old girl next door type, who´s eager to find a boyfriend and try this thing called sex, starts dating a very nice, albeit shy and romantically inexperienced guy named Mark, when she has sex with his best friend Mike, who´s more of a suave ladies man and becomes pregnant. He´s then sort of a dick towards her, since he more or less leaves her to deal with on her own and doesn´t even show up to give her a ride to the clinic, although he promised he would. They do become friends again though, after he apologizes to her for not dealing with it better. Thankfully Mark forgives her and him and Stacey end the movie as a very cute couple, with the epilogue some months later telling us that they were hot and heavy, but still hadn´t gone all the way yet!
Marisol and Eli´s storyline: I have to thank my fellow writer LadyLannister for the inspiration for this storyline, that´s heavily inspired by her story "Smells Like Teen Spirit". I don´t think I would have considered putting them together, if I hadn´t read that one, but they´ve quickly become one of my favorite couples to write. Eli´s first episodes that dealt with his dealing with the sorrow of Julia´s death and him and Marisol getting to know one another were perhaps my favorite episodes of the season, but they´re one of those couples that you can do all kinds of storylines with. I won´t deny either that them not having the same skin color is another reason why I like them, since looking back, I have no doubt been too guilty of mainly pairing characters up with those of their own skin color. How long I´ll keep them together isn´t decided yet, but so far I´m having so much fun writing them, that they´ll probably be kept together for at least a while longer.
FUN FACT:
I´m not the only one, who was guilty of having very few mix-race relationships. In the old series, they only had one longer lasting one, that being Michelle and BLT. There was Yick´s short romance stories with Melanie and Tessa, plus Tessa´s with Scooter but all were very short lived and that was about it. Then from the beginning of DNG there was Jimmy and Ashley, until they broke up towards the end of the season. It always seemed to be something they tip-toed around for a long time, until we reached season 7, where all the girls seemed to be falling for Sav! After that they were more common, but you still had very few of them when looking in the grand scheme of things.
More diversity in this season and going forward: This will come naturally with the next batch of characters, because it shouldn´t all be about a bunch of straight, white kids! This is partly why I´ve given characters like Danny, Chantay, Sav and Marisol more stories, than I gave Hazel and Liberty, who I probably should have done more with. It´s not just in regard to race either, that I feel like I haven´t done enough diversity wise. I can already let you know now that Gracie/Adam is one of the characters that will be joining the series from the beginning of next season and I plan on doing more same sex romantic storylines too, since I´ve only had a couple of them so far. Alex and Ashley were a good couple, but the series still needs it´s "Big Gay Romantic Storyline" and it´s one of the things that´s high on my check list.
FUN FACT:
You might ask yourself: Who was the first character of color in the Degrassi Universe? To answer that, we have to all the way back to 1981 and episode 3 of "The Kids From Degrassi Street" entitled "Irene Moves In", which I recently had the chance to see for the first time ever along with the other 4 of the first five episodes. In the episode, a new girl moves in on the street and upsets the status quo among the kids, a little 8 year old African American girl named Irene, who would also appear in several other episodes. In this one she fights over the friendship of an adorable girl named Cookie (who I had to give the nickname "The OG Degrassi bad-ass) with Ida, the original Degrassi main character. In the end all three of them become best friends of course and Irene is allowed to join the very exclusive INC club, a club you could only join if your first name starts with an I, N or C!
The "Alex" episodes: These were among my favorite episodes as well as they also helped to wrap up the Ashley and Paige storyline from the last season. I played around with many, many ideas for how it could be done and I have over half of an episode that would have had Ashley returning to Toronto for a different reason and Terri then being the one, who got them to be friends again. It wasn´t a bad idea, but the show needs some big dramatic episodes too, of which there perhaps weren´t enough of this season and my original idea didn´t feel like it had near as much on the line, as this one did. The reason why I used Billy Idol songs for it was because the more I thought about it, the more the story felt like something out of one of his hits from the 80´s.
FUN FACT:
Just like it was in the real Degrassi, it´s time for a changing of the guard, since next season will mirror season 8 in the real series. That´s both the good and bad thing about Degrassi, especially if there´s a character you really like, that there has to be this constant rotation of characters as students graduate and new ones start at the school. In addition to Gracie/Adam, the beginning of next season will see the addition of characters like KC, Connor, Jenna and Riley, while other characters like Alli and Clare, who have only been minor characters will become more important, than they previously have.
Things that should have been better: I re-read the entire season before I started writing this and the one thing that annoyed me the most was all the storylines, I forgot about along the way. That is something I need to do better at in the future. Putting in the episode with Sav´s wild girl Veronica was in retrospect perhaps a mistake as well. Not because it was bad, but it had too many OC´s in it compared to usual and feels almost like an "Ugly Duckling" to me compared to the rest of the season, like in the old days where they would throw in "Backdoor Pilots" in popular shows to try to launch a new show. I would have to give worst episode of the season though to the B-episode starring Craig, Katie and Drew, but that´s just my own opinion.
FUN FACT:
Let´s be honest here, Degrassi also had it´s stinker storylines over the seasons! It´s hard to pick a top 3 from so many seasons, but here are my picks.
1: Emma and the "Weed Olympics".
An obvious joke here would be "What were they smoking, when they came up with that one"? There are so many lapses in logic in the writing of it, with them giving weed brownies out right and left, while knowing that they´ll get kicked out if they´re caught being the biggest, but it´s only one of many. The incredibly lame ending with the diabetic forgetting to take her insulin because she was stoned, was yet another big pile of lame on top of something that had already reached close to maximum lameness!
2: Degrassi Nudes.
The one good thing you can say about the previous entry was that it only lasted one episode and it wasn´t an episode that could offend anyone. Degrassi Nudes went on for what felt like forever, becoming more and more implausible as it went on, to the point where it was becoming very hard to suspend your disbelief in the end. There is no way that in the real world it would be allowed to go on for so long before the school or a parent found out, or that no one would be asking questions why the Power Squad all of a sudden had all of this money and that´s on top of how unbelievable the whole thing was to begin with. That it ended like it did with everything pretty much being allowed to go back to normal like nothing ever happened, only made it worse.
3: Joey´s House Sale.
What makes this one so bad isn´t as much that it´s perhaps the most boring and least interesting storyline in Degrassi history, because who would ever give a damn how much Joey got for his fictional house, it´s also that it´s paired up with the Rick Murray school shooting storyline in what can only be described as a huge brain fart from the side of the producers. Imagine how good those Rick episodes could have been, if they had been focused on that story alone without us having to be pulled out of it with house prizes!
Let me know what your least favorite storylines were in the comments!
Anyway, that´s it for this round. Thanks for reading and I hope to see you in the next chapter, which is the first episode of season 5!