Degrassi 101

This is the page where I give a basic (or, more accurately, as basic as I can) explanation of the Degrassi franchise.

What is Degrassi?

To put it most simply, Degrassi is a teen drama franchise from Canada that's known for tackling a lot of heavy and controversial topics and often doing so with an educational intent.

Degrassi is an ensemble teen drama that follows multiple generations of teens spanning from the 80s to the mid 2010s. There isn't much of a specific premise other than following the lives of teenagers.

There's a few things that set Degrassi apart from other shows.

A lot of the show has some educational intent. Degrassi was created by a junior high teacher and the earlier parts of the series were often compared to after school specials. But unlike PSAs, Degrassi is still very plot focused, and rarely gets preachy.

That gets into another thing, which is their unique portrayal of serious issues. Like I said before, a lot of these are presented with some educational intent, but, for the most part, everything is pretty realisitc. There are some exceptions, particularly the way drugs are portrayed, but overall Degrassi clearly does it's best to stay grounded on issues such as sex. They also aren't afraid to get controversial. There have been teen pregnancies, abortions, HIV, school shootings, discussions of multiple kinds of child abuse, and many queer characters, including a trans main character as early as 2010.

At one point, Degrassi: The Next Generation adopted the tagline "Degrassi: it Goes There" and boy does it!

Lastly, one of the most unique things about Degrassi is that the whole franchise uses similarly aged actors, meaning all of the characters were played by real teens.

A Degrassi Timeline

As I mentioned, this franchise spans over 30 years! So here I will give a brief history of the franchise. I may end up creating a dedicated page for a more elaborate explanation of Degrassi's history, but for now, here is a summary.

Degrassi started with a short anthology series titled "The Kids of Degrassi Street," which started in 1979. These episodes were similar to after school specials and they are not canon to the rest of the franchise. They starred local children from the Toronto area. It was a pretty good success, so the creators were allowed to create a bigger series.

That's when Degrassi Junior High was created. This was a teen drama intended for Junior High students (12-14 years old). Once the characters moved onto high school, a spin off, Degrassi High, was created to follow them. That series was capped off by a TV movie, School's Out. It was an... interesting send off for the characters.

Many years later, they decided to make a reboot: Degrassi: The Next Generation. This one started in 2001. One of the characters, Emma, was the girl who was born during the series after one of the characters, Spike's, teen pregnancy.

Degrassi: TNG lasted 14 seasons and followed multiple generations of characters. I separate the show into eras, see the section on that below.

After the 14th season, they continued the series with Degrassi: Next Class, which was distributed by Netflix in the US. That one followed the younger characters from the last 4 seasons of TNG.

That ended in 2017 and there hasn't been any more Degrassi since. There was a new reboot for HBOMax announced a while ago, but it was cancelled during the WB Discovery merger.

The Eras of Degrassi: TNG

As I described earlier, TNG spans 14 seasons and there are many different graduating classes that appear on the series.

I have the series divided into 4 different eras based on which characters are on the show. Here is a table showing them:

The bottom row is how I would catagorize the seasons without any overlap between the eras.

I should clarify that this is not a fandom convention or anything the slightest bit official. I made this system up.

I will now give a brief explanation of each one. If you're someone who has watched Degrassi but doesn't remember it well, this will be a good refresher so you know which parts of Degrassi you've watched.

Emma Era

The Emma Era spans from season 1 to season 7 of TNG, which is the season when the rest of the Emma era characters graduate.

This era is named after Emma Nelson, the daughter of Spike who was born during Degrassi Junior High. She's also treated like the main character of the show during the first season, although the show embraces the ensemble pretty well after that.

The Emma Era mostly describes the first two classes of characters on the show, the classes of 2006 and 2007.

Some of the Characters:

Emma Nelson	Manny Santos	Spinner Mason	Paige Michalchuk
Marco Del Rossi	Jimmy Brooks	Ellie Nash	JT Yorke
Hazel Aden	Craig Manning	Ashley Kerwin	Sean Cameron

The Holly J/Transitional Era

The Transitional Era describes the characters introduced when the show was finding its footing after the Emma Era characters started graduating.

The specific classes are the class of 2008 and the class of 2009/2011 (retcons caused the graduating years of the characters to change throughout the series).

Some of the characters:

Holly J Sinclair	Jane Vaughn	Sav Bhandari	Chantay Black
Anya MacPhearson	Johnny DiMarco	Riley Stavros	Declan Coyne

The Clare Era

The Clare Era describes the classes of 2010/2013 and 2011/2014. Some of those characters were introduced as grade 9s in season 8, but most were introduced from season 10 onwards.

This one is named after Clare Edwards, who was the sister of Darcy Edwards, a character that was mostly present during the Emma Era but was a part of one of the Holly J Era classes.

Some of the characters:

Clare Edwards	Alli Bhandari	Eli Goldsworthy	Adam Torres
Drew Torres	Bianca DeSousa	Katie Matlin	Marisol Lewis
Jenna Middleton	KC Guthrie	Connor DeLaurier	Dave Turner
Jake Martin	Imogen Moreno	Becky Baker	Fiona Coyne

Next Class

Next Class was a direct continuation of Degrassi TNG. I also refer to the Next Class characters as Maya Era characters sometimes, since many of them were introduced in seasons 11 and 13 of TNG.