WHAT IF? - SEASON 3 EXPLANATIONS
Hi everyone and welcome to another round of explanations! I don´t know if any of you noticed, but I tried something new for me this season, which was to try to write an entire season without having and double or triple episodes. This was also part of the reason why it became harder and harder to find fitting episode titles based on Spingsteen songs, as the season progressed. It was an interesting experiment, since it meant that I had to limit myself to telling "smaller stories" at a time, rather than having them sectioned into "bigger stories", if that makes any sense! The main thing is that you readers enjoyed it, though and going by how nicely the series has continued to grow it´s fan base, even this far in, tells me that I must be doing something right. I´m still in doubt whether to continue the series after season 4, but if it continues going this way, then I just might. Anyway, let´s get on with the how´s and why´s of this past season.
Emma and Sean´s Story: It might have felt like this one was a little all over the place at times, but there was a reason to the madness. Emma´s whole story, going back to the beginning of this series, has been rooted in her and Sean and them needing to be "Ready For Each Other". As you all know, them having a happy reunion at the end of the last episode, doesn´t mean that it´s smooth sailing from here on out for them, but they´re getting there. The things that happened this season, from Emma finding a new self, to her crush on JT and eventual (short) relationship with Craig, all of it was in a way a test of how much Sean loved her and was willing to continue to love her no matter what. He stuck in there, never losing patience with her and not giving up hope, when a lot of other guys would have and for that he gets his prize. I didn´t originally plan to have a ghost intervene, but more on that later.
FUN FACT:
The people behind Degrassi have gone so far as to admit, that them not having Sean and Emma end up together was a mistake. In the documentary "Degrassi Goes There", they´re asked about it and pretty much all of them agree, that it was a blunder to have her end up with the wrong guy. With the new episodes coming out next year, could this be something they´ll want to make right, now that they can? It wouldn´t surprise me, if they did, since they know that a lot of old school fans would want to see it. Then again, Degrassi has always been (and should continue to be IMO) about the kids first and foremost, so we´ll have to wait and see.
Paige´s Story: Originally, my plan was to have Andy be more of a hardcore drug addict, who dragged Paige down with him and he was also the one who was going to die from an overdose. But the more I got into writing it, the more I liked the idea of her becoming a bad influence on him, after it had first been the other way around. I´d already done a drug addiction story with Jimmy in season 2, so I was very set on this one becoming different in as many ways as possible from that one. Using Paige´s original story from DNG as another piece of inspiration, plus me reading a newspaper article here in Denmark about high school students using Cocaine at their exams and the story practically wrote itself. If I had to name a story this season, that I´m most pleased with how it turned out, Paige´s would probably be it.
FUN FACT:
Andy was named after Andy Wood and his band mates were named after the other members in Andy´s real life band Mother Love Bone. The band´s fictional name "L´Andrew" was taken from Andy´s stage name "L´Andrew the Love Child" (which itself was taken from an old Star Trek episode), when he played in the band Malfunkshun, before his career started to take off. Many other details were taken from Andy´s real life, including the use of Coke to deal with stage fright, something that many, many other musicians have also sworn to! For the Andy sadly, the party ended with him dying at just 24 years old from a Heroin overdose. His personality I tried to base as much as possible on the real Andy, as seen in the documentary "The Loved One", that was made about him after his death. "Stone" was named after Stone Gossard (who actually has a sister named Star BTW), but nothing else than his name was used to base the character on. From what I know, he´s one of the more grounded rock stars, but with that name, he made for the perfect choice! "Stoney" was Andy´s nick name for him. The real Stone and Jeff would go on to form a band you may have heard of. It´s called Pearl Jam.
Sav, Anya and Holly J: In order to keep it interesting and different from the original, sometimes I need to think outside the box. Going back to when I first watched DNG, one of the things I disliked and found most interesting at the same time, was the dynamics between Anya and Holly J. How Anya would bend like a straw to whatever Holly J wanted got me thinking, as to how much it takes to make someone bend to your will like that. So, when it came to coming up with the next "What If", I imagined what Anya´s life would have been like without Holly J in it. Her and Sav would have become close sooner, possibly before them being anything more than friends was something, either of them considered yet. For Holly J, she would have been very lonely without Anya and more likely to be willing to change, in order to make friends. She would also be more grateful when people showed her kindness, since she hadn´t had someone to kiss her butt 24/7. For Sav, having Anya as an influence in his life much earlier (and not in an on/off girlfriend way) would have given him more of an insight into how what we would see as normal parents in the west raise their kids, as opposed to how he´s being raised by his very traditional Indian parents. It annoyed me as well, pretty much every time, when Sav would quietly go along with what his parents wanted, even when he knew they were wrong. Something in me made me long to see him show some balls and stand up to them, which is where his (still not finished) story about youth rebellion comes from.
FUN FACT:
I´m almost ashamed to admit that I saw it, but I have seen one movie with Samantha Munro, who played Anya. That role was her playing Shannon Doherty in "The Unauthorized Beverly Hills, 90210 Story" made by Lifetime, the principal employer of former Degrassi actors, it seems! As you would expect and much like with "The Unauthorized Saved By the Bell Story" (which is the only other Lifetime movie, I´ve seen), most of the real BH 90210 cast dismissed the movie as being very little based on fact and the events that took place mostly made to seem as sensational as possible. From an objective standpoint, it wasn´t bad and Samantha actually did a decent job as Shannon. Being someone who was a teenager when BH 90210 was at it´s peak, it made for a fun waste of an hour and a half, but not more than that. It´s kind of ironic, that a Degrassi actor was cast in this movie, considering that Degrassi was one of the main sources of inspiration for BH 90210, which then helped to kill off the original Degrassi series. However, if you didn´t grow up as a fan of the show, I wouldn´t waste my time on the movie.
Craig´s Love Life: The best you can say for him, is that at least the guy is getting some on a fairly regular basis! The lesson on never dating a fan-girl of yours comes partly from personal experience, as is the part of feeling like you´re taking advantage of a girl you´re dating, because she´s a few years younger than you. For Holly J, it was a tough lesson in being blinded by your own fantasy and ignoring the reality of things. I thought that they made for a cute couple and a good way to get Holly J introduced, but they were never meant to last. Neither were him and Emma, but I needed someone to be Emma´s new boyfriend, who she could dump to be with Sean, even though Craig was perhaps better for her, from an objective standpoint. You could call this "Molly Ringwald Logic". Add in his past with Manny and it made for another fun aspect to play around with. Once again, he´s left alone and heartbroken at the end of a season, which some of you may see as karma paying him back for his past. Whether it is or not, I´ll leave open for discussion.
FUN FACT:
Degrassi is know for it´s age appropriate actors, but Charlotte Arnold, who played Holly J, is one of those whose furthest age-wise from the character she plays. Charlotte was born in 1989, four years before the fictional Holly J was born. It´s not that bad with Jake Epstein, who was born in 1987, where as Craig was born in 1989. Another fun fact about Charlotte is that she auditioned for both the roles as Emma and Liberty, way back in season 1! Could you imagine her as Liberty? It´s too weird to even think about! She also auditioned for a character in season 4, that ended up getting scrapped, as well as both Anya and of course, Holly J, the part she became known and loved for. It´s still wild to imagine, that she could have been a part of the original cast, which was another reason why I thought it would be a fun idea to give her a story with one of them.
Marco´s Story: If I´m gonna steal, then it´s nice that I have plenty of old Danish movies to pick from, that none of you are likely to have seen! The main inspiration for this was a Danish movie from the early 90´s named "Smukke Dreng" or "Beautiful Boy", if you translate it into English. It´s basically the story of how a teenage boy from a poor home gets involved in the world of underage male on male prostitution. It made a big impression on 14/15 year old me, when I saw it on TV about a year, after it came out in the cinema. The boy in that movie is younger than Marco was here and had a very different back story, but the story was basically the same. "Olivia" in that movie was actually a transgender girl, who lived her life as a boy (played by a then popular singer named Dicte), something that even for us wasn´t something you saw in movies or on TV at the time. I´d been considering how to do an updated and "Degrassi-fied" version of it for a while and with more stories about sugar dating coming out seemingly every day, I started to put two and two together to form the story, we got here. Sugar Dating is something that especially those who are very young and get involved in it, end up getting seriously burned on, like Marco did in this story. I personally couldn´t be more disgusted with men like Earl, who groom them and prey on them. You won´t see me doing many stories that are as hardcore as that one and I hope that none of you were too offended by it. If you were, then you have my apologies.
FUN FACT:
In yet another "What Could Have Been Casting Mindf*ck", can you imagine Adamo Ruggiero playing Craig and getting it on with Manny and Ashley? Apparently it came so close to happening, that they had him audition for the role, that as we know, went to Jake Epstein. Another fun fact about him is that he went to the same school as both Deanna Cataluce, who played Alex and Amanda Stepto, who played Spike.
Red´s Story: I was originally planning on this having at least one more part to it and I had an outline for an episode written, that would have involved Red and Anya, along with Peter and Mia in a rivalry story with each other. As it was, it got "bumped" for the episode with the juniors, where Peter and Danny almost lose their girlfriends, something I don´t regret, because especially Chantay and Danny weren´t used a whole lot this season. What it ended up being though, I can only say that I´m very happy with. It was to the point and told the story, I wanted it to tell, to cap off the story I´d started with him in season 2. Using Anya as a very innocent newcomer to the situation, gave me a chance to tell the story from her perspective, rather than his, which I thought made for an interesting twist to how these stories are usually told, with "The Patient" normally being the focal point of the story. Most stories I have figured out, maybe not down to every detail, but pretty well before I start writing them. This one, I only knew would end with his death and as for how I would deal with it, I couldn´t figure out for a long time. Then I remembered a pair of movies, that I hadn´t seen in a long time. The 1990 classic "Ghost" and the 1981 dark humored horror movie "An American Werewolf in London". I took the part of getting to redeem your death after you die from "Ghost", where as talking to your friend, after they´ve died came from the other movie. I felt like someone had to die, now that Rick hadn´t been shot and as for how the ending turned out, I´m rather pleased with it.
That´s it for this time! Have a good one and I hope to see you again in season 4!