HBO Max has been rebooting and continuing some iconic franchises: Gossip Girl, Sex and the City, Pretty Little Liars, and even Gremlins. Next on the list is Degrassi, the classic Canadian teen drama. Starting as The Kids of Degrassi Street, the franchise has spanned four decades and five series so far, with a sixth on the way. Those who watched Degrassi may have fond memories of school bands, The Dot, and dances gone awry, all of which we hope to see in the new show.
However, fans should be metered with their excitement. If the Gossip Girl revival is any indication of how a teen series revamp could go, Degrassi may end up a disappointment. That isn't to turn people off from watching it or showing the franchise support. But, it seems like we need to discuss the quiet elephant in the room: does the negative response to the Gossip Girl continuation hint at how the streaming service will handle their Degrassi series?
The Response to Gossip Girl
The original Gossip Girl aired on The CW from 2007 to 2012. It initially received positive reviews in its first two seasons, even being called a guilty pleasure by The Washington Post. As time went on, like any series, it lost some favor, with New York Magazine saying it had trouble keeping the cultural relevancy audiences had come to expect with the show after previously naming it the "Greatest Teen Drama of All Time." Of course, it received criticism over the course of its run, from how it was different from the book series it was based on to who Gossip Girl turned out to be (because, sadly, it wasn't actually Kristen Bell).
The reaction to the first season of the Gossip Girl revival, still named Gossip Girl despite including next to none of the original characters, did not have the same hype. USA Today called it "a stunning failure through an Instagram filter," while The Guardian says the series has none of what people love about the original show. This is the first hint that the Degrassi revival by HBO Max may not be as great as fans are hoping for.
The Guardian isn't wrong. From the first scene of the new Gossip Girl, something about it felt wrong. The feeling of controlled chaos fans have come to associate with the franchise wasn't there. The opening sequence of the original is a train ride (no pun intended). Everything from the characters to the plots of the 2021 version felt like they were trying too hard to imitate the attitude and feel of the original, and they just completely missed the mark. The first Gossip Girl was a guilty pleasure, through wild stories like Blair and Dan dating to how cringey the dialogue could be. The second version gives second-hand embarrassment.
That isn't to say Degrassi will go down that way, but it's something to consider if this is how HBO Max handles revamping teen dramas.
The Degrassi Team
What's more troubling than negative reviews is that a writer and executive producer of the original Gossip Girl, Joshua Safran, is the showrunner of the new series. He helped make the original show what it was and didn't include any of what made it great in the 2021 version. That isn't to blame Safran; there are more moving parts than just him. But, it is important to note that despite involvement from those closely involved with the original series, the new Gossip Girl just didn't turn out.
This information is relevant because the showrunners of the new Degrassi were writers from Degrassi: The Next Generation, the series that aired from 2001 to 2015. Julia Cohen and Lara Azzopardi co-wrote a single episode that aired in 2009. They were not producers in any form on Degrassi: The Next Generation or Degrassi: Next Class, the Netflix revival after Teen Nick canceled the series. Could their lack of experience in the Degrassi franchise impact the revival?
The new showrunners have the stamp of approval from one of the original producers of the franchise, Stephen Stohn. On Twitter, he complimented Cohen and Azzopardi's careers and said it was time for them to "lend their brilliance and creativity to showrunning what has turned out to be a great and enduring franchise." This is a positive sign for the continuation. If people linked to the franchise are confident in the new showrunners, then fans should be too.
Before Degrassi comes to screens, HBO Max's Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, a series set in the same universe as the original show, will premiere. Its release may give more information as to how a Degrassi revival will turn out, mostly in determining if the Gossip Girl continuation was a fluke or the start of a pattern for the streamer.
The new Gossip Girl is returning for a second season, so even if the Degrassi series doesn't get the best reviews, chances are there will be more than one walk through the old hallways.