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.