For those who came to the Degrassi franchise via Degrassi: The Next Generation or Next Class, it can be a shock to learn that it actually started all the way back in 1979.
Spanning almost four decades, the Degrassi universe has amassed a truly tremendous cast of characters, including descendants of the original show’s teens and preteens who now walk the drama and heartbreak-filled halls of Degrassi High.
With so much variety in the types of characters, viewers are offered ample opportunity to find ones to root for, and ones to despise. In some cases, one character can provoke both reactions.
A lot of it comes down to the actors' performances-- a good actor can sell shocking plot twists that make no sense, or terrible decisions from a character that the audience is still supposed to like and sympathize with.
It's fair to say that some of the teen actors succeeded in this,or proved so likable and popular that they graduated from background character to main character. Others, particularly ones who broke up fan-favorite couples, were crucified on a cross of keyboards on fan boards and blogs.
With that said, here are the 8 Casting Decisions That Hurt Degrassi (And 8 That Saved The Show).
Saved: Dylan Everett as Campbell Saunders
Campbell Saunders was a hockey player for the Toronto Ice Hounds who attended Degrassi away from home.
Thanks to a gentle, heartfelt, and wounded performance from Dylan Everett, Campbell quickly became a fan favorite, which made the trauma conga line that he ended up going down all the more heartbreaking.
Everett nailed his portrayal of a student struggling with homesickness and mental illness, and was well-liked on set as well as by fans.
He was so well-liked that the show runners considered aborting a storyline where he takes his own life, and having him survive past mid-season.
Alas, they stuck with it-- following a suspension and anxiety attacks, he was finally pushed over the edge by Zig Novak and claimed his own life, irrevocably changing the lives of his fellow students.
Hurt: Shane Kippel as Spinner Mason
Prepare yourself for the understatement of the millennium: Degrassi fans have strong opinions. Spinner Mason is a character who provokes wildly disparate reactions from them, with some hating him, while others loved him.
Though he goes through a great deal of character development across the series, Shane Kippel doesn't quite stick the landing, which makes his growth less believable.
It isn't helped by the fact that he starts out a bully, then perpetrates the prank that finally pushes Rick Murray to bring a gun to school.
He also implies that his friend Jimmy Brooks was the actual prankster, resulting in Rick shooting and paralyzing Jimmy.
The most baffling plot twist was when he ended up accidentally drunkenly marrying Emma Nelson, and staying married to her. They had barely interacted before it, and fans found it so unbelievable that many refuse to acknowledge that it happened.
Saved: Drake as Jimmy Brooks
Degrassi put Drake on the pop-culture radar. His likability and charm as the school’s basketball star Jimmy Brooks made it even more heartbreaking when he was shot and paralyzed in what is arguably the most famous Degrassi storyline.
He was wrongly blamed by Rick Murray for a prank that humiliated him right in a moment of triumph, as he clinched the win for his team in the Whack Your Brain scholastic competition.
Rick brought a gun into school with the intention of ending the life of Paige. However, after eavesdropping on a conversation between Spinner Mason and Jay Hogart where they blame the prank on Jimmy, Rick confronts him at gunpoint, and then shoots him in the back.
Drake’s character never walks again, and is confined to a wheelchair for the rest of the series.
Hurt: James Edward Campbell as Mark “Fitz” Fitzgerald
The halls of Degrassi have seen many smoldering bad boys come and go, but few sparked a bigger "love them or hate them" divide amongst fans than Fitz, who was introduced as a bully in season 10 of Degrassi: The Next Generation.
Any charisma that James Edward Campbell brought to the screen was not enough.
This was particularly seen when Fitz's character developed a habit of making fun of fan-favorite transgendered character Adam Torres, then beating Torres' brother when he tried to stand up for him.
However, things really ramped up when he became embroiled in a feud with Eli. Fitz made the first move, damaging Eli's car, and proceeded to escalate it by physically assaulting him multiple times and terrorizing him with a knife.
While Eli is also a love-or-hate character, he came out ahead with fans in the feud, while Fitz went to juvie.
Saved: Cassy Steele as Manny Santos
Somehow, “Cassie Steele” is not the name of a character on Degrassi, but it is the name of the actress who plays Manny Santos, a fan-favorite character and one who goes through an enthralling amount of character development over the course of her time at Degrassi.
Manny was bubbly, vivacious, and innocent when she first appeared on the series, but Cassie Steele was able to turn her into a complex character over the years.
Steele developed Manny through complex storylines that involved her trying to gain acceptance and attention due to insecurities about her body and issues over being in Emma's shadow.
After discovering a love of acting thanks to Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith, she went through more character development that culminated in her returning in the Degrassi Goes To Hollywood TV movie, and ended up happily married to Jay Hogart while working in Los Angeles as an actor.
Hurt: Jessica Tyler as Jenna Middleton
Few characters have been as insufferably cheerful and saccharine as Jenna Middleton. Though a self-declared “boyfriend stealer,” it’s hard to imagine anyone being swayed away from a relationship by her sweet personality.
She's also a part of Degrassi's cheerleading squad known as the Power Squad, so a heaping of annoying, excessive school spirit goes on top of her unflappable peppiness.
However, what really earned the fiery ire of fans was when she managed to break up the fan-favorite couple of K.C. Gunthrie and Clare Edwards.
Eventually, hatred of her cooled thanks to a storyline where she got pregnant, and fans took pity on her after she was treated horribly by KC.
It's telling, though, how much she had to be put through the ringer for fans to develop sympathy for her.
Saved: Jake Epstein as Craig Manning
Jake Epstein proved that he had the acting chops and good looks to win over fans when he emerged largely unscathed among Degrassi die-hards despite being part of a love triangle where he was unfaithful to his girlfriend Ashley with a girl he regarded as his true love, Manny Santos.
It helped that he had a tragic backstory and an abusive father, which wrings pity from the fanbase even as he makes incredible questionable decisions.
Fans who root for the Craig-Manny pairing tend to portray Ashley as a frigid prude, while fans who prefer Craig with Ashley tend to portray Manny as a homewrecker.
The triangle became a quadrangle when Ashley's best friend Ellie fell in love with Craig, who returned her affections.
All of this makes it astounding and a testament to Craig's charm and popularity that fans blamed his conquests rather than him for his messy love life.
Hurt: Andre Kim as Winston Chu
It’s always a shame when an actor’s real-life behavior sours their on-screen personalities. Winston Chu was already problematic because of how he treated his love interests on the show.
Winston was unfaithful to his girlfriend Frankie and never admitted it, then freaked out when she admitted to having feelings for another guy.
However, all that pales before the actor’s real-life behavior. Kim got in serious trouble for tweets and videos he posted in 2012.
The tweets and videos feature Kim dropping offensive slurs and terminology, referring to opponents that he played against in a League of Legends live-stream with the n-word and talking about assault.
Though producers were quick to respond and condemn his comments, in this day and age, it’s ludicrous to think that they hadn't done some homework beforehand to make sure that there were no public skeletons in their actors’ closets.
Saved: Nikki Gould as Grace Cardinal
Goth princess Grace Cardinal quickly grew from background character into a fan-favorite thanks in no small part to the unapologetic, straightforward attitude actor Nikki Gould gave her.
Starting out as a relatively background character, her sassy nature and unique look began earning her attention from fans, as did her loyalty and protectiveness for her friends.
It also helps that she was tech-savvy and willing to go to hell and back for her friends, whether it involved triangulating cell phone signals or breaking into a reality star's trailer.
Fans also enjoyed her ambiguous orientation and flirtatious attitude towards both guys and girls.
It all made her a fan-favorite in the ensemble of Degrassi, and led to her role slowly growing to main character status.
Hurt: Olivia Scriven as Maya Matlin
Maya Matlin has the problem of being a boring character that the show didn’t seem to know what to do with, and fan hatred for her was exacerbated by her meddling in the romantic affairs of other characters.
She also had the dubious honor of being a character who was disliked even by the actress who played her.
In an interview on After Degrassi, her actress Olivia Scriven admitted that even she doesn’t like Maya, who is the younger sister of soccer star Katie Matlin.
Her character didn’t really have anything dramatic to do until her boyfriend Campbell Saunders took his own life in season 12 of Degrassi: The Next Generation.
Following this plotline, her character became more dynamic and less milquetoast as she began acting and dressing more rebellious following the motional trauma of losing the boy she loved in such a horrible fashion. However, overall the character of Maya seemed to fall flat.
Saved: Aislinn Paul as Clare Edwards
Clare Edwards has the honor of being part of a serious contender for fans' One True Couple in Degrassi with her on-again, off-again boyfriend Eli Goldsworthy.
She's the younger sister of former Degrassi student Darcy Edwards, and actress Aislinn Paul played her with an innocent, stuck-up quality.
All that combined with her steadfast loyalty to her friends, turned her into a fan-favorite, and Aislinn Paul's skill as an actor probably contributed to the sheer number of the trying and torturous storylines that found Clare at their epicenter.
She was harassed by her boss at the school paper, Asher Shostak. Also, not only did she have to deal with an accidental pregnancy and miscarriage, but she was also diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in the summer of 2013.
Fans rejoiced when she was declared in remission just in time to be declared Student Council Vice President.
Hurt: Sam Earle as K.C. Gunthrie
There’s no way around it: K.C.’s actor has a punchable face. If Justin Bieber and Ansel Elgort had a baby, it would be him. However, a good actor can work around that.
Unfortunately, as a result of characterizations and some truly reprehensible decisions, his character wasn’t quite the misunderstood bad boy that the show's writers were probably going for.
Fans were livid when K.C. left Clare Edwards for Jenna Middleton. Then, when Jenna became pregnant with his baby, his treatment of her became truly reprehensible.
He asked her to have get rid of the child, but when they learned that she was too far along to do this, he berated her for waiting so long to take a pregnancy test.
Then, he broke up with her, and no actor, no matter how charismatic, could survive a despicable character action like that.
Saved: Jordan Todosey as Adam Torres
Degrassi was consistently unafraid to tackle controversial topics and put forward progressive storylines, using the characters to examine issues that teens had to deal with in real life.
One of their most progressive moves in recent years was introducing the character of Adam Torres, a female-to-male transgender teen.
Played with sincerity and charm by Jordan Todosey, Adam's storylines allowed the show to examine transgender bullying.
Even after being forcibly outed as transgender on the show, Adam grew to be comfortable in his own skin, which was helped by Todosey's sweet and genuine performance.
Less progressive was the show's choice to cut off Adam due to complications from surgery following a car accident, which was just another instance of the tendency for TV shows and movies to cut off LGBTQ characters.
Hurt: Miriam McDonald as Emma Nelson
Nobody likes a character who is written as too preachy, and Emma trotted out the soapbox frequently in the first few seasons of Degrassi: The Next Generation.
Fans were exasperated, considering the fact that she didn’t receive much additional characterization aside from being portrayed as an uptight goody-two-shoes.
Furthermore, fans weren’t buying her whirlwind romance with Spinner Mason, where it seemed like they went from barely talking to being madly in love again for no reason.
Things turned around for her character in later seasons, though, as she became increasingly involved in the more dramatic plot lines of the series, and the fan hate dissipated somewhat.
However, fans were still mystified by character choices that no amount of acting could sell, like her marrying Spinner.
Saved: Eric Osborne as Miles Hollingsworth III
Eric Osborne as Miles Hollingsworth got a chance to really show off his acting chops in more ways than one. Miles suffers at the hands of an abusive, unpleasable father. However, Miles desperately craved his love and approval even while he acted out in rebellion.
He had to deal with the pressure of his father's business, political campaign, and him having an affair on the campaign trail. Rounding out his familial issues, he even had to talk down his brother Hunter from shooting others at the school.
However, perhaps the biggest proof of Eric Osborne's casting saving Degrassi came in Miles' downward spiral intodubstance addiction.
Osborne got a lot of applause in Degrassi: Next Class for the character arc where Miles ends up addicted to anxiety pills and has a personal reckoning that ends with him taking shaky first steps toward recovery, which included entering therapy.
Saved: Munro Chambers as Eli Goldsworthy
Eli can best be described as a character who fans either love or hate.
He is the other half of the Claire/Eli power couple. The two have had an off-again, on-again relationship running for four seasons, during which some fans found the couple's love story romantic, while others found it deeply abusive and troubling.
It helps that Munro Chambers plays Eli with vulnerability and artistic charisma, and that the show took pains to show that the character has bipolar disease, which explains some of his darker moments and actions.
Still, he was very controlling of Claire, and at one point brought a gun into school and crashed his hearse in order to win her affections.
With all that, it takes a fantastic actor to still have half of the fanbase swooning for him. It helped that he has showbiz in his blood, though: his uncle was Colin Mochrie from the classic UK/US comedy improv series Who's Line Is It Anyway?
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Can you think of other casting decisions that saved or hurt Degrassi? Tell us about them in the comment section!