[KCsGirl]

Sorry, I'm not so up to speed on all the "new" Degrassi seasons, but I was just wondering, since I don't watch the show regularly, are you guys waiting for the new season to start or is it on some kind of short hiatus?

I'm actually DVRing a few episodes so I'll actually be able to contribute to the discussions!

[X3LiSA]

Originally Posted by KCsGirl Sorry, I'm not so up to speed on all the "new" Degrassi seasons, but I was just wondering, since I don't watch the show regularly, are you guys waiting for the new season to start or is it on some kind of short hiatus? I'm actually DVRing a few episodes so I'll actually be able to contribute to the discussions!

the show ended season 5 in june, and is coming back with season 6 in september, so i call this a 2 month hiatus. i'm waiting impatiently for sept. though, lol.

[KCsGirl]

Thanks X3LiSA, yeah, most of the shows are coming back in September, and it just can't get here quick enough!

[Johnnie]

I think CTV finished season 5 earlier, but it'll be longer until it's back on CTV though apparently, I'm just glad to be watching Instant Star.

[robinepowell]

Wrong show - sorry! I got mixed up with Corner Gas.

[Whitney86]

thats cool

[robinepowell]

Here's some possible news on when we'll get Season 6 in Canada.

Degrassi The Next Generation Hangout - News

10/30/2006 - CTV Season 6 Premiere Date We now have confirmation when Degrassi Season 6 will premiere on CTV. There has yet to be an official announcement from CTV, other than it will be a midseason replacement for "Dancing With The Stars." With that said, ABC.com is reporting "Dancing With The Stars" finale airs on 11/14/2006. CTV has been airing them simultaneously so this means the finale will be the same date. Therefore logic would tell you Degrassi Season 6 will take over the next week. So the date for the season 6 premier of Degrassi on CTV will be 11/21/2006. On that date CTV will be airing 2 episodes a night every Tuesday in order to catch to where they should be by their usual Holiday hiatus. Source: ABC.com

[robinepowell]

Turns out the won't be a premiere on the 14th after all. Degrassi The Next Generation Hangout - News

11/01/2006 - CTV Season 6 Premiere Date Update It appears we have misspoke in our report a couple days ago that Season 6 of Degrassi will premiere on CTV on 11/21/06. While "Dancing With The Stars" finale does air on 11/14/2006. CTV announced today in a press release that the next week on 11/21/2006 they will be airing 4 hours of music specials starting with "Tony Bennett: An American Classic" at 7PM followed by the "2006 American Music Awards" from 8PM-11PM. This would mean our original speculation that Season 6 of Degrassi would premiere on that day was incorrect. Since we know Season 6 is supposed to premiere in November this would leave one final Tuesday in November for it to air. So unless CTV airs the premiere on a special day and time it will be on 11/28/2006. Still no official announcement from CTV, as always we will keep you posted. Source: CTV.ca

[robinepowell]

Okay Canucks, Season 6 will start Nov. 28th @ 8:00 pm E/P followed by another episode @ 8:30. From what I can gather, CTV plans to air two episodes a week. Here's a link:

CHANNEL CANADA :: Canada's Entertainment and Broadcasting Information

[Quarterley]

Toronto Star - Nov. 28, 2006:


Degrassi goes new school

Nov. 28, 2006. 06:34 AM
ROB SALEM


Drag-racing delinquents. A single-mom cheerleader. Pre-marital teenage erectile dysfunction. And one of the regulars is apparently marked for murder.

This is not your parents' Degrassi. Or your uncle's, or your aunt's, or your older sibling's. Or mine. If anything, it's Tori Spelling's (now that she's married to a Canadian) — a slicker, sexier, new-school Degrassi, a sort of 905-one-oh, if you will.

Let's face it, times change and so do kids, and you wake up one morning to suddenly discover that those precocious tweens you tucked into bed the night before have blossomed overnight into curvy young hotties and surly, unshaven, nascent thugs.

And as life goes, so goes Degrassi — this has always been its trademark and its defining strength. And why it has become so beloved by so many on both sides of the border.

It was easy to overlook the Next Generation part of the title when this "new" group was still approaching and/or emerging from puberty — even with the kind of real-world problems that have set Degrassi apart from every other TV teen show since the original series first hit the air back in 1987.

Drug abuse, eating disorders, sexually transmitted disease, domestic violence, prime-time profanity ... Degrassi's kids have never been shy when it comes to courting controversy. So it stands to reason, as this generation comes of age, that the stakes of their young lives would accordingly rise.

Tonight's sixth-season debut, "Here Comes Your Man," a two-part episode airing on CTV from 8 to 9 p.m., sees some of our gang returning for their last year of high school as others move on to college and beyond.

Still in the spotlight is Emma Nelson (Miriam McDonald), a five-year NextGen veteran, having apparently fully recovered from last season's anorexia and her volatile relationship with bad-boy Sean Cameron (Daniel Clark), and now making kissy-face with Peter Stone (Jamie Johnston), the spoiled son of principal Hatzilakos (Melissa DiMarco) ... at least, until Sean returns from Wasaga, resolved to finish high school and open up his own garage.

Some of the old/new Degrassi gang have actually graduated and are ready for college, including Paige Michalchuk (Lauren Collins), her gay hockey-player brother Dylan (John Bregar), his now live-in lover Marco (Adamo Ruggiero), and her former best friend — and also, briefly, her lesbian lover — Alex (Deanna Casaluce), who is in fact now back at Degrassi part-time for make-up classes to become a massage therapist.

Note to newcomers: do not even begin to attempt to follow all this if you are not a totally committed Degrassi fan. I mean, I love the show — I was even on it once — and I haven't managed to keep up either.

The last time I checked, Emma Nelson was, like, 12 years old ...

It was the fall of 2002 and my pal Bruce McDonald invited me to cameo on a pivotal second-season Degrassi: TNG episode he was directing — to play the minister who marries original Degrassi class members (and now the only remaining ongoing characters) Archie "Snake" Simpson (Stefan Brogren) and Christine "Spike" Nelson (Amanda Stepto), mother of young Emma, whom I remember then as an absolutely angelic child (though I am reliably informed that, away from my prying ministerial eye, this was in fact the occasion of her first screen kiss with Sean).

So you can imagine my consternation and chagrin at seeing her now, in the full bloom of young womanhood, whooping it up in the shotgun seat of a souped-up ragtop. Let alone the after-the-fact revelation that what apparently drove the poor girl into her anorexic spiral last year was catching her stepdad in a forbidden lip-lock with the school's shapely principal ...

As the fake official at his fake wedding, I am of course apalled. Is nothing sacred?

Not on Degrassi. And may it ever be so, as this current class inevitably moves upward and onward to make room for yet another new generation.

And when they do, I see for them a far brighter future than, say, the graduates of that ludicrously unrealistic American equivalent, Saved by the Bell, which, incredibly, debuted around the same time.

Think about it: a celebrity game-show also-ran (Mario Lopez on Dancing with the Stars), a professional and an amateur porn star (Elizabeth "Showgirls" Berkley and Dustin "Dirty Sanchez" Diamond) and a serial show-killer (Mark-Paul Gosselaar, NYPD Blue, Over There, Commander-in-Chief).

Perhaps if their faux high-school experience had been just a tad more realistic, at the very least they would have already gotten a lot of this stuff out of their systems.


-------------------------------------

Life imitates Degrassi

Nov. 28, 2006. 06:08 AM
JEN GERSON


Degrassi is all grown up.

Back-to-back episodes of Degrassi: The Next Generation will kick off the sixth season tonight at 8 on CTV, and, to mark the occasion, I.D.'s Jen Gerson invited three cast members and a pair of university students to a round table discussion. They met on the show's new University House set at a North York studio.

Amid bedsheet curtains, mismatched plaid retro couches and a home that looked — if not smelled — like university squalor, they sat down to talk about being grownups. Sorta.

Ryerson University students Caitlin Jones and Danielle Gesualdo, both 18, have been devout Degrassi followers for four years. Growing up in Pickering, the friends, who had a Degrassi-like posse of their own, related to the trials and tribulations of the cast members on their TV screens.

They were joined last week by actors Adamo Ruggiero, 20, who plays Marco, Lauren Collins, 20, who portrays Paige and Deanna Casaluce, 20, who plays Alex.

These graduates of Degrassi Community School are juggling real-life part-time university studies with busy acting schedules. (Ruggiero is at York, Collins at U of T and Casaluce at Guelph.) They talk about missing their friends, partying too much (or too little) and about what it would be like to be normal university students.

Jen Gerson: So, you guys have made the transition into a more adult show and Caitlin, Danielle you two have made the move into real-life university. I'm just going to go around, what's it been like to make that transition?

Lauren: It's kind of funny because my character Paige is starting university this year, and I, Lauren, am starting university this year. So it's been kind of cool doing both at the same time.

As far as the show goes, it's opening up tonnes of new doors for us with the types of storylines we're tackling. We can push the envelope a little bit more because our audience is growing up with us.

Jen: And you yourself have made the transition into university. What's that been like?

Lauren: It's a little weird, my first day around campus. I felt pretty cool. I had my new school bag and the new notebook.

Adamo: You so went back-to-school shopping, didn't you?

Lauren: Oh, I so went back-to-school shopping. I planned my outfit. It was exciting but it was also scary because all of a sudden you're one person out of thousands. It was a little overwhelming.

Adamo: My character is just starting off university right now ... and Marco is experiencing this whole form of independence. He's moving out, he's living on his own and he's had this whole university experience.

A lot of my friends left to go to university and they're living in residence and through them I'm kind of experiencing how it is. You're not in high school any more and you're not with your friends moving from grade to grade. You're not even in your house. You are completely somewhere different and the future is just yours.

I'm kind of doing that in my own life, but mostly I'm getting to live it through Marco. I get to see what that whole university experience is like.

Commuting: putting a damper on debauchery.


Jen: What's non-TV university been like?

Danielle: We're both still living at home in Pickering so I have to commute every day. So every day we take the train.

Lauren: That's a long commute if you've got morning classes.

Danielle: Yeah, we take the train for, like, 50 minutes and then we have to take the subway.

Adamo: Whoa.

Danielle: In the beginning, I didn't really like the university scene but I'm beginning to like it a bit more. It's a big difference from high school obviously. We had a pretty close group in high school and then when you go to university ...

Caitlin: It's hard because all your friends move away and you're stuck at home and have nothing to do.

Danielle: And everybody's talking about getting drunk on a Tuesday and all we can think of is that we have to get up so early to take the train to commute.

Caitlin: And it's hard to make friends at school because the people in residence kind of shun us.

Adamo: It's okay. I go to York and it's the same thing.

Lauren: Well, 'cause York's such a commuter school.

Adamo: It is, but I'm doing a film, fine arts thing. So the kids are in residence and they're very involved because they're in school all the time, right? Doing after-school stuff. So I'm very out of the clique.

Danielle: Yeah, that's how it was in the beginning. Then we sought out other commuters.

Jen: Caitlin, what's it been like for you?

Caitlin: The workload and missing your friends, that's been hard to deal with.

Jen: You were saying earlier that you didn't really get into the university scene. Why not?

Danielle: Probably just because living at home changes it so much. All of our friends are running around — party, party, party — and they're loving it.

Deanna: Yeah, that makes a huge difference. I go to the University of Guelph and it's been impossible to make any friends. Especially when you're in a classroom with 500 people. It's tough. I never really got into the university lifestyle. I haven't been into any pubs around Guelph. Nothing.

Danielle: I feel like I'm missing out.

Jen: Do you think there is a university lifestyle?

Lauren: More so in smaller towns. I have tonnes of friends who are at Western and that is the university life. They don't really see that there's much else to do there. So they're all living in houses together and they all go to the same bars.

Adamo: It's almost like university from the movies. One of my friends was, like, "You have to come down for Halloween." And I'm, like, "Dude, do I have to dress up?" and he was, like, "Dude, you actually have to, like, dress up."

And I dressed up and then I realized that if I didn't dress up, I'd be a loser. They were so into it.

Lauren: Like camp or something.

We'd love to see just one sexual encounter on Degrassi end without an STD, pregnancy, abortion, break-up, broken heart, swarm of locusts, plague or sea of blood.

Jen: There are some pretty mature new storylines in season six. The show is about to get into more adult themes. Is that realistic? Are people that slutty out there?

Adamo: I think it's pretty symptomatic of our characters growing up.

Lauren: Exactly.

Adamo: As you grow older, it's not so much the first kiss any more. It's the first, something else.

Like I said, our characters are becoming so much more independent from each other and from their families. Paige moves away. Marco moves out. I mean, Alex (Deanna's character, who's still in high school).

Deanna: I'm isolated at high school now, so none of my friends are around me.

Adamo: So in this form of independence there's a whole new form of self-discovery.

Deanna: Our characters do grow a lot.

Lauren: And in different ways that you never expected.

Adamo: It's giving us a lot of challenge. It's also fun to be shooting in here, where we have scenes where we're all lounging around.

Deanna: Can we play pretend?

Lauren: Imagine if we lived together.

Deanna: I can't even imagine what it would be like in a dorm room or having a house.

Adamo: Imagine sharing with somebody.

Lauren: My two best friends were stuck in a dorm room the size of this table. I don't know how they did it. It's tough.

Jen: Danielle, your and Caitlin's understanding of university so far, has it been as party-rific as you'd expect?

Danielle: When we go out to other universities, it's usually a lot of fun. But I don't know how they do it every single night.

Lauren: I say that every single time I come back from visiting a friend. How do they live like that?

Caitlin: And I don't know how they come up with these ideas. I have a friend at Trent and they have a puke chart.

Lauren: That's amazing.

Caitlin: They actually count the number of times and the winner gets whatever.

Deanna: That's disgusting. I don't know if I want to be part of that.

Caitlin: But at the same time, they're bragging about how great it was. The first weekend that my friend went away, we went up to the university. She talked about how great it was and how much fun she was having, but then when she was leaving she said, "Oh, maybe I'll just come with you guys and come home for the weekend." And that was the first weekend.

So I don't think it's really as great as they make it seem and I think they kind of play off those things so that they don't think about how much they miss home and how different things are.

Adamo: A lot of my friends will call me and say, "I need to come home." I'm from Mississauga and they say, "I need to be in Mississauga tonight. I'm going to come home for the weekend."

Some of my other friends will say that or they'll say, "Come visit me, come visit me."

So I think they do miss it.

Lauren: It's got to be tiring living that lifestyle, pushing yourself all the time.

Adamo: I don't know how they focus. Seriously. With puke charts?


Growing up's, like, hard. Really. Especially the part where you remember to eat.

Jen: So, what about this set? Do you think it reflects the ghetto lifestyle of the student?

Adamo: It's pretty luxurious.

Lauren: I think we have to say that Marco and Dylan (the other roommate in the show) are pretty lucky. Everyone on the set has been, like, "Man, if my first house were like this."

But on the other hand, the decor, and the couch that completely doesn't match anything else in the room. Because that's what happens.

Adamo: I was on my friend's couch in London and the leg broke off. And I was, like, "Oh my gosh!" and he was, like, "All right. Operation: We're going to tip the couch and break off all the legs."

And just to make everything seem in proportion, he broke the legs off of all his other ghetto couches so they were all on the floor.

Jen: And yet, somehow, they manage the video game consoles and the TV.

Lauren: Oh, yeah. You need those.

Caitlin: Usually you'd get, like, 20 university students living in a house like this.

Deanna: Filming scenes where we're in this big university house, it makes me realize how different my life would be.

Adamo: It's intimidating.

Deanna: It would be so different if I were living in Guelph and doing all my classes. It would be a completely different life experience.

Lauren: In these scenes, we're "making breakfast" and a props person comes down and puts down waffles and orange juice in front of us. If we were living on our own, I don't think there would be anyone there to do that for us. It's a huge thing to take on.

That's why I look at my friends at school and they won't eat for a day if they are too lazy to go to the grocery store.

Adamo: It's like when they come over to my house and say, "Yo, dude, do you have food?"

Lauren: If I'm visiting them they say, "Please bring us bagels. Please."

Jen: So, is there any storyline or plot over the past five seasons that you relate to?

Adamo: I love the episode where Craig decides to go away for his band because I related to it so much. Never had the show paralleled my life so exactly because in that episode we're all trying to be a part of Craig's dream. He has a big record deal and he wants us all to be a part of his band.

And suddenly, the manager says, "Dude, actually we really only want you."

And Craig feels really bad and he has to go tell Marco and Jimmy and Spinner and Ellie and they say to him, "This is you. This is your dream. This isn't us."

Marco says he wants to be a social worker. Jimmy wants to draw. And they all have this amazing scene where Craig jumps in the car and he's gone.

When they shot that episode was exactly when my friends were leaving me. And everybody went away and very few people stayed in Toronto with me and a lot of my high school crew just went off.

High school's really over and our lives are about to change. I shot that episode and I wanted to cry.



Sharing their thoughts on the set of Degrassi are, clockwise from left, actors Lauren Collins and Adamo Ruggiero, fans Danielle Gesualdo and Caitlin Jones, and actor Deanna Casaluce.

[Soeshie20]

Merry Christmas Degrassi
I'm sure the Canadian fans will be happy to know that according to the schedule at degrassi.tv, CTV will air "What's It Feel Like to Be A Ghost" BEFORE The N on Dec. 26th. I was kind of surprised by this, because I assumed that CTV would still take it's usual Christmas break. The Jan. schedule has not been posted yet though, but hopefully CTV will just continue airing new episodes." from LJ

Found this on the spoiler board ..............

[Gangsta Gangsta]

wow, that is surprising!! hopefully someone uploads them... haha

[JustMe2000]

Degrassi gets its syndication deal.

[robinepowell]

Here's an article on Channel Canada about the next four new episodes of TNG: CHANNEL CANADA :: Canada's Entertainment and Broadcasting Information

Death on Degrassi: Four-Episode Arc Culminates in the Murder of a Beloved Degrassi Character, January 9 on CTV Degrassi: The Next Generation will once again charge forward early in the new year with an intense four-episode storyline that ends, for the first time, in the death of a veteran DNG character. The first two episodes air back-to-back on Tuesday, January 2 at 8 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. ET and the following two episodes air back-to-back on Tuesday, January 9 at 8 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. ET on CTV (check local listings). In the first two episodes, airing Tuesday, January 2 at 8 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. ET and entitled "What it Feels Like to Be a Ghost - Parts One and Two," Craig is back in town for a music festival and Manny can't help picking up right where they left off. Craig's embracing the rock star lifestyle and has a cocaine addiction to match. Though everyone thinks he's amazing, Manny has to decide if this new and dangerous Craig is the same person that she fell in love with. Ellie thinks Craig's behaviour is Manny's fault and is determined to stay by his side. When Craig grabs a spot playing with alternative rockers Taking Back Sunday at a university concert, his addiction catches up with him and he spirals out of control. In the following two episodes, airing Tuesday, January 9 at 8 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. ET and entitled "Rock This Town" and "The Bitterest Pill," Manny is intent on getting over Craig and uses Liberty's upcoming birthday as an excuse to throw a party at Emma's house while Spike and Snake are out of town. And of course, no party can be kept a secret for long. Soon the party gets out of control when students from another school drop in unexpectedly. When tensions mount from a culminating school rivalry, one of Degrassi's favourite students is stabbed to death. In shock over the murder, the grief-stricken students throw a celebratory memorial at Degrassi to best honour their friend. But even with their friend gone, a secret is still lingering. One of the students must decide if the secret is better left unsaid or if needs to be revealed.

[JustMe2000]

More on Degrassi's future in syndication, from Playback.

Degrassi close to syndication following NATPE by: Lianne Stewart Following last month's NATPE convention in Las Vegas, Degrassi: The Next Generation is just 10% away from its goal of reaching U.S. syndication by September. The half-hour teen drama was sold in a number of mid-market territories including WMOR in Tampa, FL, during the annual convention, via deals struck by Vancouver's Thunderbird Films and its American cohort Program Partners. A program is not technically considered to be syndicated until it has 80% coverage of the U.S. market's 210 territories, according to rules laid down by advertisers. "There's a lot of work to get the smaller markets into the schedules because your first 70% is focused on the key markets like New York, Chicago and L.A.," says Thunderbird president Michael Shepard, who pitched the Epitome Pictures show from a hotel suite during the three-day market. "We had all sorts of buyers coming through. It felt busy last year, but it was very, very busy this year." Before NATPE, Tribune Broadcasting committed to daily strip the series on all of its 23 stations. Thunderbird's focus is now on cities such as Little Rock, Honolulu and Spokane. Degrassi is expected to hit syndication. The series is the top-rated program on Nickelodeon's teen-targeted The N and Thunderbird cleared 98% of the U.S. syndie market with Da Vinci's Inquest two years ago after arriving at NATPE with no deals in place. "The success of Da Vinci really paved the way for Degrassi," says Thunderbird cofounder Tim Gamble. Thunderbird is also working to secure time for the science drama ReGenesis, which it recently added to its roster. The company also reps titles including Intelligence, Cold Squad and Stone Undercover.