Retro Television Review: Degrassi High “School’s Out”

Posted on August 10, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi High, which aired on CBC and PBS from 1989 to 1991! The series can be streamed on YouTube and Tubi

School’s out! What does the future hold for the students of Degrassi High?

“School’s Out”

(Dir by Kit Hood, originally aired on January 5th, 1992)

The series finale of Degrassi High left viewers with a few unanswered questions, particularly concerning the future of Joey and Caitlin’s relationship. Indeed, when the series ended, the majority of the characters still had another year left in high school.

School’s Out, a television movie that aired on CBC Television in 1992, was an attempt to bring closure to the Degrassi story. Starting with everyone but the perennially academically challenged Joey Jeremiah graduating, School’s Out deals with the final summer before everyone leaves for college or adulthood. Joey asks Caitlin to marry him and, when she says she’s not sure that she’s ready, he instead cheats on her with Tessa Campanelli. Joey loses his virginity to Tessa. Caitilin eventually loses her virginity to Joey (and, at the time, assumes that she’s his first as well). Snake does not lose his virginity over the summer and spends almost the entire film in a funk about it. Wheels becomes an alcoholic and ends up in prison after he crashes his car and kills a kid. Lucy, who was Wheels’s passenger, ends up blind and crippled. Simon and Alexa finally get married. Snake, meanwhile, drops the first F-bomb ever heard on Canadian television. Caitlin drops the second. “You were fucking Tessa Campanelli!?” As for Tessa, she ends up pregnant, has an abortion, and then apparently hops on a bus and vanishes.

Things got dark!

I’ve already reviewed School’s Out once. It’s not only a classic Degrassi film but it’s a great teen film period. Rewatching it, I truly was struck by just how incredibly dark things got in School’s Out. Degrassi High had its share of dark moments but never to the extent as seen in School’s Out. I mean, Wheels’s goes to prison! Watching Degrassi High over the past few months, it was easy to see that Wheels was destined to eventually end up in some sort of trouble. He was too angry and too self-centered and not willing to take responsibility for his actions. There was a reason why, even before the events in School’s Out, Snake was distancing himself from his former friend. Still, Wheels is a character who grew up over the course of the show. It’s still strange to think that the quiet “good kid” from Degrassi Junior High eventually grew up, developed a drinking problem, killed a child, and was sentenced to prison. As easy as it is to dislike Wheels, it’s still hard not to mourn who he could have been if a few things had just gone differently in his life.

That actions have consequences has always been one of the main themes of Degrassi. By lying and cheating on Caitlin, Joey not only loses the love of his life (albeit temporarily) but Tessa herself is left to suffer alone. Lucy, with a brilliant future ahead of her, makes the decision to get into a car being driven by the drunk Wheels and, when we last see her, she’s in a hospital bed and unable to see. School’s out and sadly, the students at Degrassi High can no longer escape the real world consequences of their actions.

School’s Out was meant to bring closure to Degrassi. And it did, for nearly ten years. Of course, all good things come back to life. Degrassi: The Next Generation would premiere in 2001. We’ll start looking at it next week.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Degrassi High 2.8 “Home, Sweet Home”

Posted on June 29, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, everyone is sick of Wheels.

Episode 2.8 “Home, Sweet Home”

(Dir by Kit Hood, originally aired on January 7th, 1991)

Oh, Wheels! Always in trouble, that one.

Ever since getting kicked out of his grandma’s house, Wheels has been staying with Joey but, after several weeks, Joey and his parents are sick of their houseguest. Wheels easts all the food, never says thank you, and has yet to even to start to look for his own place. Instead, he steals a bunch of money from Joey’s mom’s purse. As a result, Wheels not only gets kicked out of the Jeremiah residence but Snake’s parents announce that Wheels can’t stay with them either. Trapped outside during a thunderstorm, Wheels calls his grandmother and promises to obey her rules if she allows him to come home.

“I don’t believe you,” she replies before hanging up on him.

OUCH! Though, to be honest, she’s right about Wheels’s sincerity. Wheels is a pathological liar who takes advantage of anyone who trusts him. It’s been a while since he was the cool kid that everyone wanted to date.

Wheels eventually crashes on Snake’s back porch. (“My parents cannot know you’re back here,” Snake says.) The next day, at school, Wheels promises Joey that he will pay back the money he owes. Joey turns his back on Wheels and walks off.

And, again, Wheels really has no one to blame for but himself. And those of us who know our Degrassi history know that things are soon going to get even worse for Derek Wheeler.

Meanwhile, Michelle returns home so she can have a quiet place to study. She is shocked to find her father is at the house. (She thought he would be at cooking class.) Michelle agrees to move back in but on the condition that she pay rent and that her father stop trying to control her life. Her father reluctantly agrees. I guess, now that she’s broken up with BLT, it no longer matters that her father was previously portrayed as being a raging racist.

This episode was okay but it felt very familiar. We’ve done the whole Wheels-is-awful thing already. Add to that, as terrible as Wheels is, I don’t really agree with Grandma’s decision to refuse to allow him to come home. Wheels promised to abide by his grandmother’s rules and that was the condition that Grandma set for his return. Wheels is a handful and undoubtedly was being insincere but I think Grandma is going back on her word here. If Wheels had come home, she could have at least continued to talk to him and kept trying to get him to go to therapy. Instead, she left him out in the middle of Toronto in a rainstorm. Shame on her for that.

Some characters are just doomed no matter what and that’s certainly the case with Wheels.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Degrassi Junior High 3.6 “He Ain’t Heavy”

Posted on July 7, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi Junior High, which aired on CBC and PBS from 1987 to 1989! The series can be streamed on YouTube!

Finally, it’s time to return to Degrassi!

Episode 3.6 “He Ain’t Heavy”

(Dir by Kit Hood, originally aired on January 9th, 1989)

Snake’s older brother Glenn (Montgomery Randal) is a Degrassi legend, a star football and basketball player who graduated at the top of his class and who is now attending medical school on a full scholarship. When Glenn unexpectedly returns to Toronto, Snake is confused.

Glenn explains that he’s come home to tell his parent that he’s moving out of the dorms and getting an apartment with someone with whom he has become very close.

Snake laughs about Glenn moving in with a girlfriend.

No, Glenn says, my new roommate is gay.

Yuck, Snake (who, we should remember, is only 14) replies, why do you want to move in with one of them?

I am gay, Glenn replies.

This episode is a huge moment in Degrassi history, because it’s the first episode to deal with someone coming out. (Coming out episodes would eventually become a regular occurrence on Degrassi: The Next Generation, to the extent that they would actually become a bit of a cliche.) Though not a regular character, Glenn is the first person on Degrassi to come out and the episode focuses on Snake’s reaction to his brother being gay. It’s to the show’s credit that Snake does not have the ideal reaction that one would hope to have. While the show clearly supports Glenn and portrays him sympathetically, it doesn’t lose sight of the fact that Snake is a 14 year-old boy growing up during a very homophobic time and it portrays his reaction realistically, showing how even a “nice guy” like Snake has his own prejudices, though in his case his prejudices are largely due to peer pressure and growing up in a society and an era that portrays people like his brother to be somehow a threat. (Early on in the show, Snake and his classmates snicker as their teacher attempts to educate them about AIDS.) Of course, those of us who are longtime Degrassi fans know that Snake is going to grow up to be a level-headed and open-minded and tolerant adult and this episode offers up hints of the man who Snake is destined to be. Snake may be 14 years old and he has a lot of growing to do but even he realizes that it took a lot of courage for Glenn to come out and that their mother’s reaction is even worse than Snake’s. The episode ends with Glenn telling Snake that he won’t be returning home until he feels his family has accepted him. Snake may not be where he needs to be but, by the end of the episode, one can see that he’s changing and maturing.

This episode was dominated by Snake and Glenn’s storyline and Stefan Brogren’s sensitive performance as Snake. That said, there were three minor subplots that played out over the course of this episode. Joey desperately tried to get the program manager of CRA-Z Radio to listen to the Zit Remedy’s demo tape and discovered that it takes a lot more than desire to be a rock star. While that was going on, L.D. refused to be Lucy’s friend until Lucy shamed her ex-boyfriend into admitting that they didn’t have sex at Lucy’s last party. (Like it’s any of L.D.’s business, quite frankly.) And Arthur freaked out because a bunch of younger students asked him if he was rich. “Who could be telling everyone we won the lottery?” Arthur asks Yick. Uhmm, Arthur …. remember your cousin, who goes to Degrassi and is a year under you? Seriously, Arthur gets the worst storylines.