When news broke last week that Degrassi, that bastion of teen angst, had been canceled, society braced itself for a deluge of prom-night dumpster babies and unemployed Canadian actors showing up on American soil to steal our hard-earned cameos. But just before we all started looking for more signs of the end times, Netflix showed up to adopt the show from its TeenNick parents.
Like an episode of the dramedy, the road to salvation had twists and turns and bumps (it did take almost five whole days for Netflix to step up). Earlier today, the streaming company passed this note to its many online BFFs:
Netflix will debut a new installment of the long-running series next year with Degrassi: Next Class. The show will take up the afterschool-special mantle, tackling such hard-hitting topics as substance abuse, violence, racism, and Canadian social mores. The current iteration will wrap things up in July with a finale event that includes an hour-long special.
Before they got the good news, diehard fans mounted “Save Degrassi” campaigns on social media, even reaching out to Drake to help save the show. Drake, of course, was a series regular before becoming a very successful rapper, producer, and songwriter. (He played Jimmy Brooks for about five years, and probably loves having an archive of his pubescent awkwardness). There’s no report on whether he did chime in with his support, but Twitter users did try to sweeten the deal for him by suggesting that he could return to the show as a Mr. Belding for the new millennium.