After 14 long years, Canada's most enduring TV export — with the possible exception of Alex Trebek — is finally hanging up its hat. On Thursday, TeenNick announced that the teen soap Degrassi, which follows a large group of teenagers as they navigate life at a Toronto high school, will air its series finale in July.
Degrassi is actually the fourth series in the sprawling Degrassi-verse, which began with 1979's The Kids of Degrassi Street and continued with Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High. (Think Marvel, but with fewer superheroes and more angsty teens.) The series became famed for its willingness to grapple with a wide variety of issues faced by teenagers — including depression, bullying, drugs, teen pregnancy, and PTSD — and also for that time when Drake got shot and ended up in a wheelchair.
The current version of Degrassi managed to extend its lifespan far past a normal TV show by swapping in new characters every time an actor departed the series, and in theory, it could probably have gone on forever. But at 14 years, Degrassi had nearly reached the age of its many teen protagonists — and hey, everyone needs to graduate sometime.
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