Country of origin Canada | No. of episodes 10 | |
 | ||
Original network Family (Canada)
Netflix (International) Original release International:
January 15
Canada:
January 4 – January 15, 2016 | ||
The first season of Degrassi: Next Class (previously known as Degrassi) premiered on January 4, 2016, in Canada and was released on January 15, 2016, internationally. It will be the first season to air on Family in Canada and on Netflix internationally.
Contents
This season follows a group of high school sophomores and juniors from Degrassi Community School, a fictional school in Toronto, Ontario, and depicts some of the typical issues and challenges common to a teenager's life. This season will depict a new school year after the previous seniors, some of whom debuted during "The Next Generation", graduated in the previous season. This season will feature another rebranding for the series and is being considered a stand-alone series. It will tell the stories of a new generation navigating high school drama with groundbreaking stories such as cyber bullying, mental illness, dysfunctional families, sexuality, online harassment, feminism, racial discrimination, life-threatening diseases and drug use. It will also target the new post-millennial teen cohort known as Generation Z. On Family, the first block will follow the telenovela-soap opera format and air every weekday for two weeks. This format was used in the previous incarnation's final five seasons, excluding season 13.
Series regulars
The first season has nineteen actors receiving star billing with fourteen of them returning from the first incarnation. Those in bold are new to the cast this season:
The eleven actors who did not return this season are:
Production
After the cancellation of Degrassi's 14-season run on TeenNick, Nickelodeon passed on the pitch for "Degrassi: Next Class". This reboot of the series was later picked up by Netflix and is considered a stand alone series for a new generation—a new incarnation. The show was given a 20 episode order with the episodes being split into two seasons on Netflix and Family. Series stars' Amir Bageria and Stefan Brogren, confirmed this before the airing of episode 10. F2N and Degrassi are also advertising episode 10 as the season finale of season 1. Filming for the two seasons began in June 2015 and wrapped early September the same year.