YMMV / Degrassi

• Americans Hate Tingle: CBC programming chief Ivan Fecan invoked this when the premiere episode of Degrassi High, in which Erica gets an abortion, was edited by PBS, leading to accusations of censorship and typical American Executive Meddling.
• Archive Panic: There are 521 episodes of Degrassi in total, out of five individual series; The Next Generation alone makes up the bulk of this, with 14 seasons and 385 episodes. If you were to binge all five series and three TV movies non-stop, from "Ida Makes A Movie" to "#KThxBye", it would take you approximately a week. This doesn't even account for stuff like Degrassi Talks, documentaries like Degrassi Between Takes and The Degrassi Story, and the Next Generation "Mini" webisodes, not to mention the non-television canon, like the Degrassi Junior High/Degrassi High novels or the TNG Extra Credit graphic novels.
• Audience-Alienating Era: The 1979–1992 era did not have one, and one of the reasons the franchise originally ended with Degrassi High, among its many, was to avoid one of these. Come The Next Generation however, and because of its long run, there are a few contenders among the fans; season 8 is considered to be that entry's lowest point because of a multitude of factors^includingthe departures/greatly reduced roles of numerous fan favorites such as Paige, Ellie, Marco, Jay, and Jimmy, the Promotionto Opening Titles and introduction of new characters on a scale not seen since Season 1 (many of whom weren't compelling/developed/likeable enough to carry storylines on their own), a widely hated Official Couple (Peter/Mia), the college storylines feeling too disconnected and inconsequential in regards to the titular high school, plot lines being dropped after only one or two episodes (most notably Jane's sexual abuse storyline), and the show's iconic title sequence getting an unfortunate case of Rearrangethe Song that was supposed to sound current and updated, but whom many felt They Changed It, Now It Sucks!.
• Audience-Coloring Adaptation: Degrassi: The Next Generation is the most recognizable version of the show (arguably mostly because of its its success in the United States, whereas the original trilogy remained an obscure PBS program that only a select few seemed to be aware of). This has also led to a widely spread and deeply entrenched misconception that The Next Generation is the only important and legitimate entry.
• Base-Breaking Character: Virtually every single character in the entire franchise is one, but some examples are more apparent than others. For example, Christine "Spike" Nelson, who appeared in Junior High, High, and as an adult in Next Generation with her daughter Emma, appears to be very polarising, even if there isn't any massive wars fought over her: she has many fans from both the original and Next Generation who view her as an independent, open-minded and compassionate person. Her detractors view her as an annoyingly frosty Jerkass who treated the father of her child badly and actively kept him out of Emma's life. Next Generation viewers who dislike her usually point to her "best friend" treatment and lack of adequate discipline of Emma, which they feel possibly led to the latter's "annoying" personality.
• Broken Base: Between those who appreciate the vibe of the earlier iterations (namely Junior High, High, and to an extent, early Next Generation), and those who prefer when it moved away from that vibe and became a full-blown teen drama (later Next Generation and Next Class). Many of those who prefer the later vibe look down on the earlier stuff (if they're aware of it) as afterschool special-esque cheese, while those who prefer the earlier vibe may dismiss the later stuff as encompassing the worst of teen drama stereotypes.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Since Degrassi High, there has been at least one minor or short-lived character that ends up having a huge impact on the events of his respective show.
  • Claude Tanner in Degrassi High was at best a minor character for most of that series aside from his nuclear protest plot with Caitlin. In the second season, he would commit suicide, to which Snake finds him in the bathroom, and the school is thrown in shambles.
  • Rick Murray in Degrassi: The Next Generation appeared for several episodes in its third season as the abusive boyfriend of Terri MacGregor. After he knocks Terri into a coma, he disappears, until returning in early Season 4 for a series of episodes that would ultimately lead up to a school shooting.
  • Later in Next Generation, Lakehurst student Drake Lempkey makes his only minutes-long appearance absolutely infamous after he stabs J.T., a character who had been there for the entire series, killing him. A throwaway line in a following episode says he was later arrested. His fellow Lakehurst bully Johnny DiMarco who was with him couldn't believe what Drake did and episodes later while at a Brat Camp admits the event traumatized him and lead him to act out more.
  • Campbell Saunders is introduced in the twelfth season. His suicide in the same season hugely affects multiple people but not limited to; Maya who dated him; Zig who told him to "go away" and "get out of Maya's life forever"; Dallas who had been arguing with Cam prior about not making hockey a priority; and Eli, who found him dead and became traumatized.
  • In the Next Class era, Maya still shows signs of Campbell's death affecting her while dealing with her own depression. When she attempts suicide via ODing, she's on an empty bus sitting in a similar catatonic-like state Cam was in after coming home from an away hockey game.
• Fanon Discontinuity:
  • The Kids of Degrassi Street is commonly disregarded because of its lack of relation to the rest of the franchise.
  • Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High surprisingly get this treatment a lot; even though they are the direct predecessors of the Next Generation and are directly connected to future iterations in every way Degrassi Street isn't, they are kind of just scrubbed from existence by popular and "comprehensive" online fan retrospectives about the show, whether because of a lack of familiarity or because of a preconceived notion that those series don't count because "nobody" has heard of them.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Two significant examples.
  • Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High were particularly popular in Australia; this led to a Shout-Out in which Wheels wears an Australian rules football jersey, which in turn even further solidified its Australian fanbase. It is still regarded as a part of the 1980s Australian nostalgia canon.
  • Degrassi: The Next Generation was very popular in the United States, arguably eclipsing whatever success it had in Canada; it was one of the flagship shows of The N, and continued to thrive even when Canadian ratings declined to a point where local critics were questioning why it was still going. This trope also managed to save the show from a brief behind-the-scenes 2009 cancellation by CTV, when Stephen Stohn negotiated a deal with TeenNick.
• Once Original, Now Common: Degrassi Junior High was praised as a breath of fresh air with the way it dealt with adolescence, and now it is regarded as the Trope Maker, or at least the Ur-Example, of Teen Drama. In the wake of all the teen shows of the ensuing decades, including later Degrassi series, it might be hard to see why its concept was so novel.
• Pop-Culture Isolation: Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High were both Canadian prime-time smash hits; in the United States, they were largely obscure PBS programs with a very niche cult following. This goes a long way in explaining the Sequel Displacement caused by The Next Generation, which was many Americans' introduction to Degrassi in general.

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