SEASON 1 EXPLANATIONS

I hope that you enjoyed the first season of the series. It was fun to go back and tell some new stories with these characters. The series was written wildly out of order, with the first episode written being episode 2 and the last being episode 17. It turned out to be a big advantage to write the whole series, before I published anything and being able to piece the story together that way.

All of the episodes we´re named after 80´s songs, as was the tradition from season 2 to 9 of "Next Generation", before they switched to naming them after 90´s songs.

Episode 1 - named after a Tears For Fears single from 1982

Why cut out the first 4 episodes of season 4, you´ve probably wondered? The main reason for this is Paige´s trial, which had to be a part of the story, since it´s such an integral part of Paige´s development as a character. Simply re-telling that story would have been a waste of time for both me and you, the readers.

I wanted to start the series by getting the three main romances established, that being Emma/Sean, Craig/Manny and Paige/JT. It would have been too predictable, if I had only had the two established couples and I always liked Paige and JT´s chemistry together. The two of them could have made a fun couple and I felt like that was something, I could take advantage of, when the original writers didn´t.

Episode 2 - named after a Whitesnake song from their 1987 self titled album

Episode 2 more or less continued the story from episode one, focusing on the three main romance stories. The series needs humor too, to not be all drama all the time, which is why I threw the silly little misunderstanding story with Ashley in there. It also served as a final ending to the Craig/Ashley relationship and left her future open for new romances, as we saw in the final episode of the season with her and Terri.

Episode 3 - named after a Mother Love Bone song from their only album. 1988´s "Apple"

As we saw it in the series, two of the main reasons why Paige and JT never became more than friends were Spinner getting in the way and Paige´s fear of losing her popularity, if she dated JT. Her getting away from that mindset and setting herself free in some way was one of the major parts of what I wanted to do with her in this season. I know that a lot of you love JT and Liberty as a couple, but I thought there was something poetic in them staying friends in stead and supporting each other that way.

Episode 4 - named after a Pet Shop Boys song from their 1987 album "Actually"

Amy was a character who played a small, but actually quite important part in the 4 episodes, she was on. When thinking of fresh things to get into, I also looked at which characters had been underutilized and what it was possible to do with them. Spinner needed at female compatriot and so the idea for this episode came into my head. I thought it was a nice story about how we too often judge a person by our own pre-conceived opinions, without getting to know them first.

As for Ellie´s storyline, it was there solely to wrap up Sean and Ellie´s relationship, so they could move on to other people, Emma in his case and Jay in hers. Sean and Ellie were a cute couple, but he was always meant to be with Emma, so sorry Ellie, but you had to settle for Jay!

Episode 5 - named after a Mel & Kim single from 1987

One of the main storylines this season and continuing into the next one was always going to be Emma getting pregnant. Manny becoming preggers was interesting, but it would have been even more interesting if it had been Emma, given her staunch pro-life opinions. I wanted them to have a nice first time though, before reality was to hit them in their faces. I remember being that age and (not to get too personal) it being like a badge of honor among us, if the girl had a "Big O", so doing your best for her was a big deal for us and if she lied there afterwards looking disappointed, then you felt like a failure. The girls of course were just as clueless as we were (I´m 42, so this was pre-internet) and figuring these things out together was a very sweet way of learning, I think. I could honestly say, that it was my first girlfriend, who taught me everything I knew about girl´s bodies back then.

Marco didn´t get a whole lot of stories of his own this season, but I knew that I had to have one that involved his dad and how Marco at this time is still coming to terms with being gay and finding out more about what it means both for his present and his future. I loved Marco´s relationship with his parents in the series and to me it was both one of the most realistic and also best told parent/child stories the series did. There will be a coming out episode for Marco in later seasons, but it didn´t feel to me like he was ready to yet at this time. FYI the Polish guy that Marco talked about at the end was Mariusz Pudzianowski, who won the "World´s Strongest Man" competition five times from 2002 to 2008, a record that still stands and is likely to for a long time to come.

Episode 6 - named after an ABBA song from their 1980 album "Super Trouper"

Jimmy needed to have a story of his own too and with him not getting shot, it had to involve his basketball career. A lot of the time, when someone sees that someone else is a huge talent, they think that they should do everything they could to pursue it, which often has terrible consequences for the athletes themselves, when they find themselves far away from home and on their own. Cam´s brilliantly told story from DNG was a great example of this. I suppose you could say that the moral of the story here was that even if something makes sense from one perspective (jimmy needing to become the best player he can, in this case), the potential costs (here Jimmy having to leave his friends and family behind) can be too high, when weighed against the potential gains. I´m not a basketball expert, by the way. I used to watch it sometimes back in the 90´s, when Michael Jordan was a huge star, but I had to get all of my info here from Wikipedia. For those interested, I´m more of a football guy, whether it be the American (NFL) version or the one played in the rest of the world.

Manny´s storyline with Craig was mostly there to show how much they mean to each other and how their daughter has brought them closer together than ever. The series needs an injection of "cute" now and then and I thought that this one did that job just fine.

Episode 7 - named after the Kenny Loggins song from the soundtrack to 1986´s "Top Gun"

There were some things from the original season 4, that I knew I wanted to put my own spin on and the colored bracelets was one of them, only it had to be in a completely different setting from what we originally got. Using Ellie and her writings aspirations in stead to form the base of the story and working Jay´s life into it, made for a pretty interesting episode, I think. Jay´s redemption in the series really came in great part from the guilt of what happened with Rick, so I had to have something to replace it, which was where the part of the story with Caroline was born. Sadly, girls and boys selling their bodies for drugs isn´t a new thing in any way and a tough subject to write about in a way that isn´t tasteless or overly graphic. The power of suggestion and the way it plays on your imagination was something Degrassi always did well, so that was what I was going for here too.

Another inspiration for how it was written was the book, movie and now also TV series "We Children From Zoo Station", that follows a 14 year old drug addict and her friends in their lives of addiction, homelessness and child prostitution on the streets of Berlin in the mid 70´s. I can definitely recommend checking it out, but only if you have a very strong stomach for these things. The book (which is based on real interviews with the actual girl (Christiane Vera Felscherinow, as she´s named), her mom and other people close to the situation) shocked the public so much, when it was released, that it changed the way both politicians and the public at large viewed drug addiction and led to many changes, in the way it´s been dealt with since across most of the world.

Episode 8 & 9 - named after the title song to the awful 1988 Madonna movie "Who´s That Girl", that she herself sang

It was time to get Darcy introduced and before you ask, yes I did tamper a little with her back story in making her a small town girl. This made for it being even more of a "Fish out of water" story, with her both getting used to a new school where things are different from what she comes from and her trying to pretend to be someone cooler than she is, to impress Craig and the boys in the band. Another function for her was to be a sounding board for Craig to explain, why things aren´t all roses for him.

The storyline with Paige and JT came out of the way he (especially in the early seasons) saw her as this teenage goddess, who was almost the be all, end all of girls to him and that if he got her, then he wouldn´t naturally be scared of losing her again. As it was, it made for a sweet little chapter in their relationship, something I thought you could use, after how hardcore the previous episode had been.

Episode 10 - named after a 1983 single by Nick Kershaw

As I´m writing this, it´s been a few months since I finished season one and the story with Terri and Emma here is probably one of my favorites, when I look back on it. The idea with bringing the big sister/brother program into it actually came to me efter watching one of the early episodes of "It´s Always Sunny in Philadelphia", where Charlie makes yet another attempt at scoring with the waitress (it´s a long running joke on the show, that we never get to hear her actual name. She´s also played by his real life wife), by getting involved with the program after finding out that she´s in it. As it always does, it backfires on him and he ends up with even less of a chance of scoring with her, than he had when the episode began. Someone had to be the first to know and Terri with her sweet and empathetic nature was almost a logical choice for it, if it wasn´t going to be Manny. Emma´s past with how she dealt with Manny´s pregnancy, was another interesting thing to play around with and a good reason, why she wouldn´t tell Manny first.

The other storyline with Toby, Liberty and JT was there to show how good Toby and Liberty could be together, how she had grown out of her long running crush on JT and was ready to move forward now.

Episode 11 - named after the J. Geils band song from the 1980 album of the same name

This again followed up on the central storyline of the season, that being Emma´s pregnancy. I was wrestling a lot with how to do it the best way and since I had the storyline with the play going on at the same time, this was a way to sort of merge the two, if you will. I didn´t want to blow off the reveal to her friends and loved ones in one episode though, so I thought that having her parents be the first after Terri to find out, made for the best next step, while also serving as a cliffhanger for the next episodes.

I hadn´t really done much with Hazel, as least not as much as I´d originally planned to, which was where her storyline with Jimmy came from. His lesson to be learned was the old "You don´t know what you´ve got, until it´s gone" bit. There will be much more to come with them in season 2, than there was in season 1 and this more or less served as an appetizer for that.

As for the play, this was of course also a part of the original season 4, only there it was Liberty and JT doing Dracula in stead. That went alright, but things going wrong in productions happen all the time and part of the inspiration for this episode goes back to my own experience from working in theaters, starting when I was 24 to around age 30. One of the larger productions I worked on was (like it happened here) hit by food poisoning. Only in this case it was the day before their opening night, where they already had a sold out house for that show and for days to come. In this story it was fish sticks, where as in my real life story, it was some food they had delivered for a rehearsal, that got people sick. This meant that they had to scramble to get actors at the last minute and I heard that even a few of us staff members had been asked, if they could fill in. They somehow managed to put on a decent opening night, but I can imagine that the director had more than a few hairs on his head turn grey during those days!

Episode 12 - named after an 1986 Iron Maiden song from the album "Seventh Son of the Seventh Son".

This was one of the most original episodes and then again not. "A Christmas Carol" has been re-told many times, with my personal favorites being the Muppet version and the Blackadder Christmas special. This was a fun one to come up with ideas for and I hope you liked the way it turned out.

Does Emma have a secret crush on Manny? After re-watching the series, I´m not sure. Let´s explore 5 pieces of evidence for:

1 - They are very close. None of them are as close with any guy over a long period of time during the series, as they are with one another.

2 - Manny slept in Emma´s bed for a year. She could have slept in a sleeping bag on the floor, on the couch or probably in plenty of other places in the house. Just saying.

3 - She is very complimentary of Manny´s looks in many scenes in the series. Yes, they´re close friends, but she doesn´t hold back with her praise for her, especially when Manny dresses up a little. The anorexia storyline also showed that she was almost obsessed with Manny keeping her figure and what Manny thinks about how she looks.

4 - Emma gets very upset to the point of becoming both destructive and self destructive, when things between her and Manny aren´t at their best. She´s clearly very scared, that she could ever lose Manny as a friend. I´m not thereby saying that dependency is the same as romantic love, but Emma´s behavior in these situations is more like that of someone, who´s heartbroken than that of someone, who´s having a spat with their BFF.

5 - Apart from Sean and perhaps the short romance with Spinner at the end, Emma never seemed to care too much about the other boyfriends she had. There was Chris, who she forgot her affection for in record time. There was Jay, who was basically just a body for her to use as much, as he was using her. Then there was Peter, who she seemed to mainly be with, because it played into her bad girl phase after the shooting and who she dumped like a sack of old potatoes, the moment Sean came back into the picture. After that it was Damien, who she didn´t seem to really care about either and was just with to be with someone. We didn´t see much of her and Kelly, but they never seemed like a couple that were meant for each other and it didn´t seem to matter that much to her, when they broke up. But when it came to her and Manny, everything was life and death, when they had the slightest disagreement or she saw a danger, that Manny would be stolen away from her.

You tell me.

Episode 13 - named after the 1988 Paula Abdul song from the album of the same name

Was the only point of this to say that Shakespeare sucked? No, I actually like some of his work and he immortalized my country for the rest of the world in Hamlet, so him and me are good. As far as reading it again though, I did that in school and it was more than enough for one lifetime! That´s coming from a guy, who thankfully never had to memorize those lines.

The morale of Paige´s story here was clearly, that you can´t go back, so you might as well move forward. The old "Hottie" T-shirt, that didn´t fit her anymore, here serving as the symbol of her past self. I also like that I got to use the expression "Bottom Boob", which always gets a chuckle out of me, when I say it out loud. If you think that being 42 means that you automatically become a grown up, then think again, people! I thought that the way the play storyline ended was cute in it´s own way, but I´ll be the first to admit, that it wasn´t a highlight of the season. It was still better than that stupid anti-Raditch song, that JT and Liberty came up with, I´ll give myself that much!

The rest of it mainly dealt with Sean trying to deal with the news, which as you would expect from him, he didn´t do the best job at. I could still never imagine him leaving Emma to deal with it on her own, so I gave them this hopeful ending to the episode.

Episode 14, 15 & 16 - named after a Judas Priest song from 1982´s "Screaming for Vengeance" album

It could sometimes feel like it was getting a little too cute this season, which was where this almost horror like triple episode came from. There were plenty of movie inspirations for this one, with the five biggest ones being: Fatal Attraction (1987), The Crush (1993), Fear (1996), Single White Female (1992) and Ginger Snaps (2000). There´s a little bit of each of these movies as well as numerous TV episodes, that it would take forever to list, that went into my inspiration for this one. As it ended up turning out, I would call it one of the highlights of the season and a great way to get Ellie and Jay together as a couple. The Rick and Darcy storyline wasn´t as strong, but I felt like there needed to be a feel good counter story to how extreme the first one was.

Part of the inspiration also comes from personal experience, in that I was close friends with a girl who was being stalked by a guy for several months, back when we were in high school together. He would call her house (back then we all had land line phones and very few had caller ID, which would in some places cost extra) and hang up or leave anonymous letters in their mailbox to her about how much he loved her and how they were going to be together some day. It turned out to be a lonely and relatively harmless neighbor of hers (who was in his 50´s) that had fallen in love with her in his own sick way, but it still scared the hell out of her and I often walked her all the way up to her front door, when we had been out together. She got a restraining order against him and he moved to the other side of the country, but it´s still scary to think back on and back then, we had no idea if it was someone, who wanted to hurt her.

Episode 17 - named after a Bruce Springsteen song from the 1984 album "Born in the USA"

This episode of course parallels the episode in DNG, where Sean goes back to Wasaga after the shooting. His family matters are complicated for sure, but I wanted there to be a feeling, that they all wanted to work this out the best way they could, so they could move forward as a family. Him being confronted with his "victim" was also a nice way to wrap up that part of his character, I thought. I can also easily relate to Sean, being myself born in a small town, before I moved to the big city. It´s always a weird feeling, when I pass the town limits, like I´m in a place where I once belonged and it´s always nice to visit, but I at the same time know, that it´s been years since I did. I suppose it´s one of those things you can never really explain to someone, who hasn´t tried it.

The other storyline was there to wrap up the Paige/Dean story once and for all, which I liked the way they did, but he only got his car wrecked and that wasn´t enough punishment for what he did. It could have used one more exclamation point on it and this was essentially what that was. Now we can say that he got his punishment!

Episode 18 - named after a 1983 song by The Police from the album "Synchronicity".

Coming to the end of the season, I already knew that Sean and Emma had to get their prom episode together, that they never really got in the original series, also because theirs had been the central storyline of the season. They´ve already come a long way from where I started the season off and it to me feels like this episode wraps up this chapter of their story nicely.

To me, it was almost over shadowed by Terri and Ashley´s storyline though, which serves as quite a cliffhanger heading into the next season! It more or less sprung from me feeling like I both hadn´t done enough with them and how, with the exception of the one Marco story, it had been exclusively about straight relationships. I could have done one with Marco, but I felt like it would have been too predictable, so I went this route in stead. It´s sure to divide a lot of you between some that liked it and some that think it was too out of left field, but for those of you, who aren´t on board, I ask for your patience. This is only the beginning of this story.

What´s to come in the future?

Season 2 has already been written, it´s 22 episodes and I think it´s just as strong, if not stronger than season 1 was. I´m currently around a third through writing season 3 and I can already announce, that season 4 and 5 will follow on with this story, so that we´ll see Manny and Emma through to the end of high school. Writing this much with the two and then leaving with them having a year left made little sense, when I thought about it and I still have no problem coming up with more stories for them. Next season will also see the introduction of several other characters, you know from DNG, but you´ll have to keep reading to find out, who that will be!

Finally, I want to thank each and every one of you for reading the series and making it feel like there´s people out there, who care about these stories I come up with. You guys rock!