TORONTO – The award-winning sudsy teen saga Degrassi is ending its run on MTV.
MTV said Thursday that the Toronto-shot serial — widely acclaimed for its unflinching portrayal of teen life — will wrap with 12 half-hour episodes.
The summer farewell will cap a celebrated 14-season run that featured groundbreaking storylines and characters, including the tale of a transgender teen that earned the show a Peabody Award.
A statement from the children’s entertainment company that owns the brand suggested Degrassi could continue in another form.
“Degrassi is one of DHX Media’s marquee brands and we expect to be able to provide an update in the days ahead for fans, the media and the market,” the company said in a terse statement.
“The Degrassi fan base runs deep worldwide and the longevity of the series speaks for itself. Stay tuned for further developments regarding Degrassi.”
The long-running franchise dates back to 1979 and over the years has been credited with redefining the way TV series tackle youth issues.
And throughout its run, it has managed to maintain a reputation for authentic storytelling and realistic teen characters.
In addition to the Peabody, the series has won a Television Critics Association Award, two Teen Choice Awards, 19 Gemini Awards, 10 Canadian Screen Awards and has received three Emmy Award nominations.
The show developed a passionate fan base after hitting the air in 2001 as Degrassi: The Next Generation.
Clerks writer/director Kevin Smith was among its more famous devotees, while a bold transgender storyline lured celebrity activist Chaz Bono to do a guest spot in 2012.
Fans expressed disappointment on Twitter soon after news broke, with some of the more ardent followers starting hashtags including #SaveDegrassi, #BringBackDegrassi and #WeWantDegrassiSeason15.
The franchise recently marked its 35th anniversary and earlier this year won Canadian Screen Awards in all four categories in which it was nominated, including best children’s or youth fiction series.
Degrassi is licensed in more than 145 markets, including the U.S. where it airs on TeenNick, as well as the U.K., Italy, France, Colombia, Venezuela, Korea, Australia, Brazil, and Zimbabwe.
Some mighty famous faces roamed the halls of Degrassi: The Next Generation over its 14 seasons:
Nina Dobrev (5.62 million Twitter followers)
The Toronto-raised actress played teen mom Mia Jones during seasons 6 through 9, managing to pack a lifetime’s worth of trauma in merely 35 episodes of work. One plotline saw Mia providing sex to boost her modelling career, while another saw the teen mourning her boyfriend, J.T. Yorke, after he was stabbed to death. Perhaps that prepared Dobrev for her signature role on the melodramatic hit The Vampire Diaries, which recently wrapped its sixth season. Dobrev, 26, announced in April it would be her last.
Jake Epstein (21,500 Twitter followers)
Epstein’s Craig Manning was a bipolar rocker who developed the inventively named fictional bands U Got the Look and Downtown Sasquatch — as well as a cocaine habit — before last appearing in 2009’s TV movie Degrassi Goes Hollywood. Epstein immediately took his talents to the stage, starring in the touring Green Day’s American Idiot, the Broadway Carole King musical Beautiful and the notoriously ambitious Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.
Aubrey Graham (23.1 million Twitter followers)
Otherwise known, of course, as Drake, a cultural game-changer and the world’s foremost purveyor of melancholy hip hop. For the first seven seasons of Degrassi, Drake played Jimmy Brooks, an affluent cool-kid eventually confined to a wheelchair after a troubled classmate blasted him in the back with a handgun. His character flirted with a music career years before the real Drake would reel in 22 Grammy nominations and four No. 1 albums.
Shenae Grimes-Beech (244,000 Twitter followers)
Over 40 episodes spread across seasons 4-8, Grimes-Beech’s character, Darcy Edwards, also endured a tumultuous journey. A Christian and model school citizen, Edwards contracted chlamydia after being raped at a party and subsequently attempted suicide. Grimes-Beech — who married British model Josh Beech in 2013 — skipped off to Hollywood just as she wrapped Degrassi to star in the rebooted 90210, which lasted five seasons and 114 episodes.
Cassandra Steele (140,000 Twitter followers)
The two-part season 3 episode in which Steele’s Manny Santos had an abortion (after being impregnated by Craig) aired in Canada in early 2004 — but it wouldn’t materialize in the U.S. until August 2006 when it was bundled in a series of cast favourites. When season 3 hit DVD, the box set trumpeted the inclusion of the “episode you can’t see on TV.” Steele followed Degrassi with a starring role on the critically respected The L.A. Complex.
Lauren Collins (52,000 Twitter followers)
After Collins’ 100-episode run as Paige Michaechuk ended in 2008, she landed guest roles on a number of Canadian TV series and parts in the made-in-Toronto movies Take The Lead and Charlie Bartlett. Collins spent two seasons on The Best Years and reprised her Degrassi role for a 2009 TV movie. Her movie Zero Recognition screened at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival.
Landon Liboiron (22,000 Twitter followers)
The Alberta native was on Degrassi from 2009 to 2011 as Declan Coyne, the rich and spoiled brother of Fiona (Annie Clark). Liboiron then made a splash south of the border on the short-lived Fox series Terra Nova before landing the part of Peter Rumancek on Hemlock Grove. He recently wrapped two feature films — Forsaken starring Demi Moore and Kiefer Sutherland and Burning Bodhi with Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting and Virginia Madsen. Last month, Liboiron released the video for his single “Boogie Chills.”
– with files by Global News
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