Degrassi: Next Class season 1

The first season of Degrassi: Next Class premiered on January 4, 2016, in Canada and was released on January 15, 2016, internationally. It was the first season to air on Family in Canada and on Netflix internationally.
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.

Synopsis

This series is a continuum from Degrassi: Next generation as it follows the remaining underclassmen along with few new students as they enter their sophomore and junior year. This series dives into serious and dark topic that affect the new generation of viewers watching otherwise known as Gen Z. Issues such as Cystic fibrosis, Racial discrimination, Sexuality, Islamophobia, Immigration, Cyberbullying, mental illness, school shootings and social media.

Cast

Series regulars

The first season has nineteen actors receiving star billing with fourteen of them returning from the previous series. Those in bold are new to the cast this season:

Amanda Arcuri as Lola Pacini
Amir Bageria as Baaz Nahir
Soma Bhatia as Goldi Nahir
Jamie Bloch as Yael Baron
Stefan Brogren as Archie "Snake" Simpson
Chelsea Clark as Esme Song
Reiya Downs as Shaylynn "Shay" Powers
Ana Golja as Zoë Rivas
Nikki Gould as Grace Cardinal
Ricardo Hoyos as Zigmund "Zig" Novak
Ehren Kassam as Jonah Haak
André Kim as Winston "Chewy" Chu
Lyle Lettau as Tristan Milligan
Spencer MacPherson as Hunter Hollingsworth
Eric Osborne as Miles Hollingsworth III
Dante Scott as Vijay Maraj
Olivia Scriven as Maya Matlin
Sara Waisglass as Francesca "Frankie" Hollingsworth
Richard Walters as Deon "Tiny" Bell

Supporting cast

Parents

Stephanie Moore as Mrs. Diana Hollingsworth
Kate Hewlett as Mrs. Margaret Matlin
John Ralston as Mr. Miles Hollingsworth II
Cheri Maracle as Ms. Cardinal
Elle Downs as Mrs. Powers
Sterling Jarvis as Mr. Powers
America Olivo as Ms. Consuela Rivas

Faculty

Michael Brown as Mr. Blake Mitchell
Pay Chen as Mrs. Lin
Ashley Comeau as Ms. Badger
Michael Kinney as Coach Darryl Armstrong
Aisha Alfa as Ms. Grell
Tom Melissis as Mr. Dom Perino

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. This season was filmed along with season 2. 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.