Categories interviews linda schuyler stephen stohn

Degrassi Execs on Abortion, Season 11, & More

An amazing new interview with Degrassi executive producers Linda Schuyer & Stephen Stohn has surfaced tonight from Toronto Star columnist Corey Mintz. Linda & Stephen discuss tough topics like abortion & suicide, plans for season 11, the telanovela format, consequences to the issues, and much more. I love interviews with Linda & Stephen, because they provide so much creative insight into the making of Degrassi. In particular, this conversation seems so honest. It’s fascinating to read about the behind the scenes aspect of this show & their careers.

The interview starts with Linda & Stephen discussing the most difficult topics to deal with on Degrassi. They both agree that suicide is always a challenge. Abortion is another topic that can be “untouchable.” Linda Schuyler explains why The N [now TeenNick] was reluctant to air the abortion episode:

SCHUYLER: The final shot is her walking through the door, going to get the abortion … And it’s very interesting. Because in the states they said, we could have shown that show, IF, at the very last shot, she showed remorse. She can’t be resolute. She has to be remorseful. If she was remorseful, we could show the shot.
MINTZ: So, if you cut to her crying …
SCHUYLER: Exactly. And we wouldn’t do that.
MINTZ: Really?
SCHUYLER: Absolutely not. What kind of message is that for young girls?

On bringing in the new generation of characters:

STOHN: And our ratings started to go down a little bit. And the network came to us and said, we still love you. You’re still our number one show. But you know what, we’ve got to prepare for a soft landing. All our research shows, seven years is it. So let’s start developing some other things. And finally, Linda and I, and I’ll actually in this case give credit to both of us on this, because the writers loved writing for those characters. So the thought of bringing in new characters, they would say yes, but they wouldn’t do it. And we finally just said, no, these characters are gone. We are not writing about them again. There’s a whole bunch of new characters. You’ve got to bring in six new characters. And then all the sudden the ratings started to go back up like that. You realize, that the way, Linda, you put it, is, first of all, there are different metaphorical ways you can say it, that the school is the main character. And so we were losing that by going beyond the school.
SCHUYLER: Much as they love the characters, they weren’t that intrigued with them after they left high school.

Season 11 is on everybody’s minds these days, as we’ve heard about early brainstorming sessions with the writers. And now we’re hearing about a new generation of grade 9’s that are to be introduced! Of course the question everybody wants to know…

MINTZ: What happens in season eleven?
SCHUYLER: Most people don’t believe us but we don’t know until we get in that room. We don’t have a plan. All we know is that halfway through season eleven, the current gang that are in twelfth grade are gonna graduate at the end of our twenty-four part telenovella. At that point we’ll bring in a whole bunch of ninth graders who will be new to the school.

This is just a brief snippet of all sorts of interesting topics brought up in this interview. Read the entire conversation (it is worth your while) by visiting Corey Mintz’s blog.
Edit: You can also read the full article on The Toronto Star’s website.