Degrassi season 8 begins!!!!

First, start off with some business that must be taken care of.
Phils won, big time. Manny's home run bugs me, not really because it was 3 runs and brought the game within reach for them or anything. It bugs me because he hardly got his bat on it. How? Also puzzling is Brett Meyer's all of a sudden getting good with the wood. He almost matched his season total for hits in this one game, and if you count the whole post-season, has already tied his season long hit total. His month in the minor leagues doesn't seem to affect that total either.

Now onto Degrassi --

Season 8 began tonight. 90210 comparisons end now. Degrassi is vastly superior. More importantly, it handles cast changes so fluidly. I think that has alot to do with how the show is serialized. It's the natural course of life. People come and people go. As much as I enjoy the original cast members, a part of me needs to see them move on. The show, after all, is Degrassi, not people who went to Degrassi, or Degrassi alum, though I do like they handled frosh year at college so far.

Plotlines which began are the Mia modeling plotline, the Manny-Liberty-Emma college beginning plotline (including a unique twist on the roommate situations), and the Clare plotline. Clare, while not entirely a new character, is going through her first year as a Degrassi student, so I guess this is her first time being a full cast member. This is what makes her plotline the most vague at the moment, and with the possibility to expand the most. It appears as if they are trying to establish Clare's group of friends/acquaintances as the new core.

What sucks about the new season?

First and foremost the new song. While I like that they are again showing the opening sequence in a setting, as opposed to the moving pictures of seasons 6-7, the song itself falls short. While there are fans of either the original song, which was used until season 5, or the instrumental version used for the setting-less 6-7, I question the judgement of anyone who likes this new song. It's all Hannah-Montana-ie, but it's in Canada, so i guess Roberta Alberta?

Also, the new principal is a douche-nozzle, ass-fag, cunt-nugget -- whatever you want to call him. But the antagonistic Principal was something the show did lack during the Ms. Hotsauce years. Regardless, it will be interesting to see how this plays out. It is also interesting to note that a pretty large fraction of the current cast has some sort of Lakehurst connection. Even more interesting is the school was made up in season 6. Not even Paige's raper, Dean, was a Lakehurst alum.

All-in-all, the season should turn out well. They've done a good job of phasing out old characters and bringing in new ones (whatever happenned to Hazel?). The new plotlines seem at least in their worst to be interesting. A lowered Darcy presence might not be beneficial, mostly because I don't think the show was entirely done with the character, but at least she's still there physically.

--Knuttel