Drama

I enjoyed Degrassi so much more when it was about real kids — not this idealized fantasy of what teen years could be, should be, if you were living on your own, or playing in a band (or both), or somehow handed every opportunity you ever dreamed possible (an acting career, a modelling career, a recording contract, an internship in New York, two weeks in a lavish penthouse apartment in New York with your boyfrend, without parents).

It used to have something to say. That, and it used to be so much better written.

Apparently, the series will be trying something new this year — after having been shuffled off from broadcast television in Canada (where it's produced, and has aired for almost a decade) to a cable channel (due to a decline in ratings), the series will be adopting the popular form of the telenovela — or, as they used to be called in the days when I grew up watching them, the soap opera.

The thing about a soap opera I've always loved best is how a simple plot can very quickly go ridiculously, completely over the top, and how much fun that can be to watch. I am, in fact, as I write this, watching the first episode of the new season, and it's become increasingly obvious that this is the approach the series has now embraced. I'm not sure why it took three-quarters of the two-hour episode for the creepy rich siblings (introduced last year) to kiss, but there we are.

This may well be the only note the series has left to play. At this point, I think it's the only thing that might keep me watching with any real interest.