After years of watching a show, changes that occur can be hard to detect. Techniques and styles that develop over entire seasons, or multiple seasons, are often softened because they take place so gradually. By the time the change is noticed, there is some confusion as to whether this change is real, or the natural result of comparing new experiences with nostalgia-tinted remembrances. I think that this is especially true of Degrassi. After being on for more than a decade, it is quite easy to forget just how the new episodes compare to the old, and quite difficult to say when the perceived changes actually occurred, if they occurred at all. In almost everything I write on this blog, I make a reference to how Degrassi "used to be" and how much it has changed. However, I really offer no perspective of when this arbitrarily defined change occurred, and I am often left wondering if the quality has been altered, or if I am just interpreting the episodes differently than I did several years ago simply because I am older and a different person. As my "throwback episode reviews" have indicated, I have been watching Season 1 of Degrassi, and it instantly struck me how truly different these episodes are from the current episodes. The nature of the show has changed quite drastically, but pinpointing when the show changed from the P.S.A. / after school special style of the early episodes to the drama-filled soap opera of the modern episodes is not easily done. The effect these changes have had on the quality and impact of the show is also difficult to analyze, partly due to the difficulty in removing personal bias, and partly due to the difficulty in analyzing such a large number of episodes. I recently stumbled across a website called Graph TV. By entering the name of a television series, this site collects the rating of every episode listed on IMDb and compiles them into a graph. This gives a visual representation of the general perception of the show throughout its entire broadcast run. The IMDb ratings for Seasons1-13 of Degrassi TNG are presented in Fig. 1. The plot can clearly be divided into the following 3 sections, which will be discussed in detail below: (A) Seasons 1-7, (B) Seasons 8-10, and (C) Seasons 11-13. Section A: The Halcyon Days From the very beginning, Degrassi was fairly well received. The average rating for the first seven seasons is approximately constant at roughly 7.75. In addition to maintaining a near constant average, the standard deviation is quite low, with only a single outlier falling below 6.25 (Season 2, Episode 18). This consistency is quite amazing. If there was any perceptible change in the show during these seasons, the audience apparently embraced it and considered the change to have a negligible effect on the quality of each episode. During these seasons, the original cast is introduced, and we follow them from 7th and 8th grade up through their graduation. The benefit of this for viewers is that as the cast ages and matures, confronting new problems with their growing age, the viewership also aged in kind. Thus, the trials and tribulations of this cast were always kept relevant to those watching and going through the same aging process. Additionally, the cast was quite small, starting with 11 lead child actors in Season 1 (Fig.2). This surely had the benefit of allowing each character to be explored in full during the course of several seasons. Fig. 2. What a happy bunch! Why are they happy? Because they are bringing endless joy into our otherwise mundane little lives. They are small in number, but large in heart. Not pictured: Sean. Perhaps this is indicative of why the ratings for these first seasons are so consistent. Anyone introduced to the show during this era knew these characters well, and as time went on, both the characters and viewer aged together. As the seasons progressed, the same characters remained, providing a continuity that also naturally shifted with the aging viewership. The show could easily maintain relevance and quality in this scenario as the show was based almost entirely around character development. Section B: The Decline In Section B, starting with Season 8, the average rating instantaneously drops to 5.5 and remains constant until Season 11. The standard deviation is much higher in this section, with episodes ranging from a high of 8.5 (Season 10, Episode 1) to a low of 4.1 (Season 9, Episode 17). The question is, after so many seasons of consistent quality, why did the ratings suddenly plummet. Perhaps the most obvious culprit is the change in cast. Figure 3 presents a plot of the number of lead child roles added or dropped for each individual season (adult roles are ignored in this analysis, as the show is mainly centered around the school-aged children). A role being dropped simply refers to a character that had been on the show in the previous season but was no longer depicted, and a role added simply refers to a new character that debuted during that season. Fig. 3. Plot of lead child roles added during a season (gray) or dropped from the previous season (orange) for each season of Degrassi TNG. It is quite obvious from Fig. 3 that the consistency of characters drastically changes from the early seasons to the later seasons. From the 11 initial roles in Season 1, the most new characters added at one time during the first 7 seasons was 3. Additionally, very few of the characters were written off of the show. In fact, of all the characters that were introduced on the show during the first 4 seasons, not a single one was written off. Finally, in Season 5, the first character was dropped from a lead role (Terri). However, in Season 8, the show drastically revamped the school's population. 11 new characters were introduced simultaneously. This was largely necessary, as the bulk of the original cast had graduated and was moving on with their lives, but this was clearly not prepared for by the writers. Instead of consistently introducing younger students, the show followed only the original cast, leaving a large void to be filled after the first round of graduations. The introduction of these new characters (Fig. 4) effectively started the show over. Fig. 4. My name is Clare, version 1.0. I have come to hog screen time and never leave. Also, by the time I am done, I will abandon every principle I have ever had in the name of having a boyfriend. Instead of gradually ushering in a new wave of Degrassi students, the viewers were forced to watch an almost entirely new cast that they were unfamiliar with. Some old names still hung around (e.g. Spinner), but the show was largely centered around a group of new, and much younger students. Not only was the connection lost between the original cast and viewers, but the relevance of having aged together with the original cast was no longer built-in. There are two options in this scenario (1) Depict the same underclassmen problems that were already depicted on the show, only with a new cast, or (2) create increasingly outlandish storylines to avoid repetition. Rather than become stale and repetitive, the show seemed to move in the direction of the latter. The cast remained large (22 at its smallest) and mostly new and the perceived quality of the show dropped significantly (Fig. 1). Figure 5 presents a plot of the total number of lead child roles on the show for each season. As discussed, there was a large increase in these roles when the original cast graduated and the new cast was brought on. What is interesting is that the size of the cast remained large, twice the size of the original cast., after the new cast had been introduced. Immediately, this discrepancy in cast size introduces a challenge of developing each character in a significant way. Screen time to accommodate so many characters subsequently had to be split in half, thereby reducing the connection with viewers. The effect of this was introducing new characters that were trying to "catch up" to the levels of familiarity of the original cast, but not affording them enough screen time to do it. This is also seen in the writing of the show. While previous seasons had developed shows with one major plot and a very minor plot to accompany it, the newer seasons were forced to add a third plot for each episode, thereby reducing the detail and backstory of each one. Instead of being able to follow a well developed story, the newer, shorter, story segments jumped from topic to topic, rarely revisiting older loose ends in the interest of spreading out screen time among the large ensemble cast. Details that had previously been subtle were now shoehorned in to compensate for the reduced time per story. Fig. 5. Plot of the total number of lead child roles for each season of Degrassi TNG Mirroring this shift in style, the show actually changed networks for Season 10. While the first 9 season had aired on CTV, the largest privately-owned network in Canada, Season 10 was aired on MuchMusic, a specialty channel. This is very telling in the style, as the show no longer focused on the day to day trials and tribulations of junior high students, as it started, but was shifting toward a more dramatic, quick-edited teen soap opera. It should be noted that several episodes during Season 10 on this new channel have significantly higher ratings than episodes from Seasons 8-9. This could be the direct result of a new viewership on a channel more suited to the style of the show in its current incarnation. Section C: The return... sort of In Section C, the average rating rose to roughly 7.5, but the ratings maintain a much larger standard deviation than that seen in Section A. Individual episode ratings range from 5.0 (Season 12, Episode 33) to 9.3 (Season 13, Episode 37-38). As seen in Figure 5, the size of the cast remained consistently large after season 8 and, while the number of roles added and dropped each season was much larger than was seen in Seasons 1-7, the turnover maintained a constant pace. Figure 6 presents a plot of the longevity of roles Degrassi. For each character introduced during a season, the number of seasons that the character stayed on the show is plotted on the y-axis. The size of the point corresponds to the number of characters with equal longevity for each season (i.e. larger spots are indicative of multiple characters fitting the criteria). It should be noted that there are several characters that are not depicted on the plot. Long-running roles such as Clare and Alli, who have been on the show for a significant amount of time are not depicted because their role is still included on the show. However, it is obvious from Fig. 6 that the number of short-term characters has drastically increased in later seasons. Prior to Season 5, no character introduced was on the show for less than 3 seasons. In later seasons, there was at least one character introduced every year that was on the show for only 1 or 2 seasons. Fig. 6. Plot of the longevity of each role, in number of seasons, as a function of when the role was introduced. The larger the circle, the larger the number of character who fit the criteria. In addition to writing shorter stories that jump from character to character, the writers gradually shifted to a style of introducing characters as short-term plot points. One example of this is Campbell, who was brought on for a single season before committing suicide. Rather than relying on the development of an established character who deals with depression and gradually leading them to this point, an entirely new character was brought on, simply to serve the purpose of being the suicide story. This style creates the near opposite of how the show began. Current episodes feature a large, constantly revolving cast who never get the chance to be as fully-developed as the casts in earlier seasons (Fig. 7). Fig. 7. Group photo of Season 12's large ensemble cast. Who are these people, really? What stories did Mo never get to share? What makes you tick, big guy? Owen? Tori? It is interesting to see how the episode ratings developed in these later episodes (Fig. 1). Perhaps new fans embraced the seemingly new show on the new channel, or perhaps old fans grew accustomed to the new format. While the average rating went up, the large standard deviation in Section C suggests a large divide in the viewership. Perhaps some episodes happen to address a poignant topic, or handle the overt drama more deftly. This style of show lends itself to how well the drama is depicted, rather than the relatability and draw of the individual characters. It should also be noted that the show again changed broadcast stations during Season 13. The influence of this is not seen in the ratings, as the move from MuchMusic to MTV Canada (one specialty channel to a similar specialty channel) was less drastic than the switch from CTV to MuchMusic in Season 10.
And this is what we're left with. The show has clearly changed. What was once a character study in adolescent life is now a high-paced over-the-top drama piece that happens to be set around a school. The average reception of the show actually appears similar now to what it once was, but this should not be seen as evidence in similarity of quality. The relevancy and poignancy of the stories of the small original cast, which led to a consistence in quality for 7 seasons, is no longer the same. The perceived quality of the show now, though still embraced by fans (not necessarily the same fans of Seasons 1-7), is much more based around the specific dramatic topic itself. This leads to a much higher deviation in the quality ratings, as a poor premise can no longer be salvaged by an attachment and affection for the characters.
1 Comment
ice
9/30/2015 03:55:05 am
tell us the names of the characters
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