Degrassi: Aftermath

Dragrassi: Aftermath S01 Explanations

Degrassi: Aftermath - Season 1 Explanations

Episode 1:

Names:

Shelly La Motta - A mix of the two most memorable victims of wifebeating in movies and TV, that I can remember. Shelly comes from Shelley Johnson from "Twin Peaks". La Motta comes from Vicki la Motta from "Raging Bull".

Eddy Reid: A mix of two famous black musicians. Eddy comes from Reggae singer Eddy Grant. Part of Eddy's backstory is that his parents were from South Africa. Eddy Grant's song "Joanna Gimme Hope" was a huge song (even though it was banned by the goverment) for the black South Africans. When the Apartheid regime fell in 1989, this would still have been a big song for them. It would make sense that Eddy's parents were fans of Eddy Grant and would name their son after him, considering what his music meant to their people. His last name is Reid after Vernon Reid, the masterful guitar player from Living Color.

Patrick Rumpole III - A mix of two memorable lawyer characters. Patrick is from Patrick Bateman from "American Psycho" and Rumpole comes from an old British I remember watching with my parents as a kid, called "Rumpole of the Bailey" about a lawyer named Horace Rumpole. I added the "III" part to make his name sound a little more fancy and rich.

Storylines:

Why write it in script form? - It's not like I'm writing this in the hope that it'll get made, I'm too much of a realist for that. Of course if there's anyone out there who wants to try to make them, feel free. Unless it's Netflix, they have to pay! Writing it this way to me makes it feel more like you're reading an episode of Degrassi, rather than reading a book or short story about what happened on an episode of Degrassi, if that makes any sense. It's also challenging in a different way to writing in the classic story form, because you can't just say "this person is thinking this or is thinking about doing that". You have to find a way of showing it. I also wanted music to be a big part of it and I could only do that in this form. I recommend listening to the songs as you read the scenes, to get the full effect, so to speak.

The episode titles - In the style of "The Next Generation", episodes are named after songs from the past.

Why the timejump? - My concept is that this is "A more reality based Degrassi for adults". Making them older gives me the chance to do more mature storylines, than the original series did. You also have to say, that with all the episodes they've done, there's not many original High School storylines left to do. Me repeating old storylines with new characters wouldn't make any sense. The kids are still there and will play a big part in the story going forward, but for the first time, it's the adults that are the stars. Placing the show ten years after "Next Class" ended also enabled me to make more elaborate backstories for the characters.

Why have the 10 Episodes take place over 10 days - I didn't want to do a series that seemed like a repeat of what had already been. This is something they never did. Having the story take place over such a short period of time enabled me to (hopefully) make it more of a coherent story with all the episodes being linked closely together. It also makes sense that it would be in the first days after Maya and Lola came back, that a lot would be happening for them.

What's with the dream sequences? - This my homage to David Lynch and in particular "Twin Peaks". I've tried to make them more straight forward than a Lynch dream sequence would have been, but the basic idea is still the same.

Why make Lola gay? - When I started putting the story together and wrote out which storylines I wanted to do, two things were obvious: 1. I had too many major characters and 2. I had too many storylines. Originally Zoe was to be paired up with Eve, while Lola got with Jonah. They were both cool characters on the show and they could have made a better couple than Jonah and Frankie did, in my opinion anyway. By putting them together I could have them both in a major storyline with eachother and trim the fat, so to speak. In my own opinion, it ended up being one of the best choices I made and they're probably my favorite couple to write.