Abe's All-Media Post

[TheAbe]

Halfway through season 4, loving it. I ordered 5-8 on Amazon. They finally had the I Have Something plotline, which I was awaiting. In the first series, Joey is diagnosed with Dysphagia, Caitlin with epilepsy and Dwayne with AIDS. Finally, halfway through season 4, Craig is diagnosed with bipolar Disorder. In Degrassi High, the final two seasons of DJH/H, the # of episodes decreased per season, and the major heavy events therefore increased in commonality. Finally, after 3 1/2 seasons of D: TNG, I feel like they caught up to the rate in just the two seasons of D H. I also watched the two parter that was famous from Season 4 - the school shooting, plus the episodes that preceded it and followed it - quite nice. Very Degrassi-esque. In the final two seasons of Degrassi high you have suicide, AIDs, abortion, and some other heavy events topics. The shooting is the first event they've had that I feel eclipses the original series.

[TheAbe]

In Degrassi JH/H there are several types of characters. I want to show you how complex and interweaving these plotlines and characters are.

I am assigning these characters to several different levels:

Major - These characters are the core characters at Degrassi. They have multiple Event plotlines that occur to them, and are in multiple seasons with multiple story plotlines. Some characters will move from one level to another in various seasons. When they move up or down, that will be mentioned in their bio.

Minor - These characters may have just one Event plotline occur to them. They may appear a lot with only story plotlines or they may appear occasionally with significance when hey do occur.

Supporting - These characters may have the occasional story plotline, but very little beyond that. Some might be occasional characters and some might be major.

Bit - The bit characters are those mostly in the background, and with the rare appearance. They might have the occasional line or two, but after that, nothing.




If I had to choose the central character(s) for each season, here is who they would be:

Season One - Stephanie Kaye
Season Two - Spike
Season Three - Wheels
Season Four - Erica Farrell (and Heather Farrell)
Season Five - Joey Jeremiah (Perhaps Dwayne instead)

School's Out - Degrassi Reunion Special - Joey Jeremiah (One episode, but really long)



Major Characters:


Joey Jeremiah - It's obvious the writers like Joey because he is one of the central characters throughout the entire show. One of the ironies is that he does not have as many event plotlines as other five season characters. During the five seasons, he is held back as an event, and diagnosed with dysgraphia. A few minor events like getting into a fight or joyriding in a car before getting his license or underage drinking also occur. In the final season, he is involved in the AIDS plotline, but does not have it. In the Special, he gets Tessa pregnant, adding to his event count. His events tend to be minor. Take a look at how they hammered Wheels or Kathleen with events to see how a five season character here did not get the shaft that much. Joey is in a ton of story ploylines, however, and has an on-again, off-again relationship with Caitlin. Begins as 8th grader, but is held back and joins Caitlin's class.

Stephanie Kaye - Although only in the first two seasons, she has some major event plotlines, including suicidal thoughts, giving into peer pressure in order to be voted President by dressing up as a slut and kissing boys, and dealing with a divorced parent remarrying another. She has the hots for Wheels but will also date Joey once or twice. 8th grader.

Caitlin Ryan - Another major character, Caitlin Ryan is one of the essential core characters of the series, but like others, there are a lot of times when she is not on screen. She loves causes and fights for the cause of the month. Several of her event lines revolve around vandalizing a factory making nuke missile components, getting into trouble with her writings, and discovering she has epilepsy. She also discovers her father cheating on her mother. She begins the show as a 7th grader, and she has on and off again relationships with Joey, as well as a relationship with Claude.

Derrick "Wheels" Wheeler - Wheels has a large number of event plotlines revolving around him. He is Stephanie Kaye's love interest early in the show. He is in a band with Joey and Snake, and the three of them are best mates. Derrick has a few story based plotlines, such as the romance with Ms. Kaye, and a time when Heather Ferrell tries to get with him, but for the most part, he is one of the key event characters. He has his parents die after getting hit by a drunk driver, runs away from home to find his biological father, finds out he needs glasses, steals from Joey's mom, gets kicked out of his grandmother's house, regularly has academic problems and tries to cheat his grades, and finally, in the reunion special, kills a young child when he gets drunk and gets behind the wheel himself. He begins the show as a protagonist, but becomes an on-again-off-again antagonist in the final two seasons. 8th grader at the beginning.

Archie "Snake" Simpson - Snake is the third of the Joey/Wheels/Snake trio. He has numerous story lines involving an on again off again relationship with Melanie, dating issues with Spike, Michelle, and Allison, and various relationship issues with Joey and Wheels as their friendship evolves over the course of the show. His event plotlines are lesser, and he is often involved with the trio in plotlines such as going to a strip club, and being arrested for underage drinking. He discovers Claude in the bathroom after Claude kills himself, and he finds out that his older brother, who he idolizes, is gay. 8th grade.

Lucy Fernandez - Lucy is another main character with a lot of epic plot lines. Lucy has to deal with inappropriate touching by a substitute teacher, shoplifting, and having absent parents who abuse her by their absence. She regularly appears as a rock for her friends in later seasons when they go through various issues, such as LD's leukemia. Lucy becomes more feminist and confrontational in later seasons, and eventually is elected school President for her senior year. She is severely injured in the same car wreck Wheels causes in the reunion special. Lucy has relationships with a lot of older students, including Clutch, Bronco and Paul. 8th grade.

Those are the major, major characters. the next group are still core, major characters, but less so:

Erica Ferrell - One of the two twins, Erica is the crazier fly by night one. She has numerous story plotlines including one where she goes out with Clutch and another where she dates an older guy, only to believe that she gets mono from him. Her major, major event plotline was so big that it dominated season four and got many episodes banned. She got pregnant and choose to have an abortion. The fallout is tremendous, and she is hurt by it. 8th grader.

Heather Ferrell - The other twin, the more ethical and rules-oriented of the twins. She has fewer story plotlines, except for one time when she tries to get with Wheels. She shares the event plotlines with Erica. When Erica gets pregnant, Heather, who is pro-life, tells her she can't get an abortion, and at first, refuses to go with her. Later, she will go with Erica, but Heather's conscience will later start giving her nightmares from the abortion. Begins as an 8th grader.

Melanie Brodie - Another 7th grader, Melanie has a handful of events, and several stories. She sort of disappears for seasons 4 and 5 from most major plotlines. In the earlier series, she has events like stealing from her mom, and she finds out about Kathleen's Anorexia. She dates Snake a few times, but all end in disaster. She also goes out on a few dates with Yick.

Yick Yu - During the first three seasons, the friendship of Yick and Arthur is arguably the central relationship of the show, but both characters diminish significantly over the last two seasons. Both Yick and Arthur drop to Minor status in the final two seasons. Yick is great at sports and poor at academics. He has a really good event on cheating, and he is involved with several events with Arthur, including watching pornography. Yick dates Melanie twice but never really gets her to fall for him. He also has a crush on Maya once, but nothing happens (even though she likes him too). At the end of season 5, he breaks Tessa and Alex up and dates Tessa for a short while, but it must not last too long because by the reunion she is dating someone else. He is a 7th grader.

Arthur Kobalewsky - Arthur is also a 7th grader, and shares a lot of plotlines with Yick, including events like the porn and cheating. He uses deception to get Alex and Tessa together. He is Stephanie Kaye's little brother, and as such, shares some plotlines with her in the first two seasons, including depression and a parent getting remarried. Story lines with him include asking Caitlin out and being rejected, and various friendship ins and outs with Yick and others.

Kathleen Mead - She begins as an antagonist, regularly a bitch of Degrassi. In the first season her character will go through a major event, and three major ones will happen to her during Degrassi. In addition to her getting drugs as a plot, she has an alcoholic mother and an absent father, is later diagnosed with Anorexia, and finally dates an abusive boyfriend, Scott, who goes so far as to severely injure her. She has some friendship story lines, but no real romantic ones other than Scott. She is often used as a foil and as a bitch. She begin the storyline as a 7th grader

Christine "Spike" Nelson - She is a straight A student with crazy hair who gets impregnated by Shane at one of Lucy's parties near the end of season one. The episode won an emmy. In season 2, she goes through being pregnant, being kicked out of Degrassi as a bad role model for other teens, having to take her classes at home, and so forth. Later in season 3, she deals with not having a personal life, financial issues, and parenting issues with Shane. She will eventually have a story plotline when she dates Patrick and asks Snake to the 11th grade dance in season 5. She is best friends with Liz. 8th grader.

Michelle Accette - Begins an an 8th grader. Begins in the background for the first two seasons, but slides into the major role. Only a handful of characters have two parters - Erica, Wheels, Dwayne, Joey, and Michelle. Michelle will date BLT, who is black. Her racist father will try to keep them apart, causing her to leave the house. Her mother cheats on her father, and then leaves, leaving Michelle alone with her disciplinarian father until she chooses to emancipate herself as a minor, and then there are plot lines about workign and paying bills an such for her. She is best friends with Alexa. Later, she will have a romantic interest in Snake in season 5, and go to the 11th grade dance with him.

Shane McKay - I am adding Shane to this list, after consideration. He is not in the show at all in the final two seasons, except for one appearance to say hello to people. At Lucy's party, he sleeps with then girlfriend Spike and gets her pregnant. There are a lot of shows and episodes that deal with Spike's pregnancy and mothering, and Shane plays a variety of parts in them too, such as providing funding, telling his conservative pastor father, caring for Emma, and more. In Season Three, he goes to a concert, takes an overdose of LSD, and wanders around all night. The next day, he is found having fallen from an overpass, but it is not known if he jumped or fell. His injuries left him mentally disabled and he is removed from Degrassi during the third season, but he will show up at the end of the year dance with a walker. His only love interest was Spike, and he was an 8th grader

[TheAbe]

No clue why the movie Imposter was severely dumped on by critics. I picked up the DVD for it after reading about it in a Wikipedia article about Phillip K Dick stories that were turned into movies. I figured it would suck after reading a bunch of lousy reviews, but I actually liked it. It has some classic Dick themes like memory, identity, and personhood, just like Minority Report, Blade Runner, A Scanner Darkly and Total Recall.

I thought it was pretty good. Much better than I expected.

It's rare that I like a movie so universally panned by critics. It got just a 14% on Rotten Tomatoes, but I did like it.

I also picked up Paycheck, so we'll see what my take is there.

[kerbythepurplecow]

I have no idea how Dick's movies "work" in Hollywood. Sometime the critics absolutely love them (Minority Report) or really hate them (Imposter). I imagine that the closer the work stay to Dick's original, the less they like it. Minority Report strays quite a bit and then goes off on it's own at the halfway mark. They love that movie. Total Recall really has nothing to do with the book and that's sitting at a 79% on RT. I haven't seen Imposter, so I can't say whether this theory holds validity. I'm just throwing it out there as a way to possibly rationalize the critical treatment of PKD films.

[TheAbe]

I have no idea how Dick's movies "work" in Hollywood. Sometime the critics absolutely love them (Minority Report) or really hate them (Imposter). I imagine that the closer the work stay to Dick's original, the less they like it. Minority Report strays quite a bit and then goes off on it's own at the halfway mark. They love that movie. Total Recall really has nothing to do with the book and that's sitting at a 79% on RT. I haven't seen Imposter, so I can't say whether this theory holds validity. I'm just throwing it out there as a way to possibly rationalize the critical treatment of PKD films.

A Scanner Darkly is at 67% and its the one closest to the original source material.

I actually saw some simialities between Minority Report and Imposter on several occasions, but that's probably due to similarly in the source material (Guy on flight from own government, goes to ridiculous lengths to try and prove himself, even a scene where he hides in an old dilapidated building and tries to avoid futuristic scanning technology).

The critics are generally right on. It's rare that I like a move with less than 50% of critic approval and never at 14%, but in this case, I do.

I liked Imposter. I give it 2.5 stars outta 4.