I always worry about a new season of Degrassi: Next Class, because I constantly wonder whether this will be the one where its streak of quality ends and it slides into teen soap mediocrity, but I was especially worried about season four going into it. After all, this was going to be the last season for the seniors (or Grade 12s, to use Canadian parlance) -- the first time Next Class has had to send off graduating characters. Is the show, in its current 10-episodes-per-season incarnation, capable of sustaining this kind of arc? Will storylines for the non-graduating characters fall by the wayside in service of wrapping things up for those who are? How will they lay the groundwork for the show's future after parting with half the cast? These were the questions on my mind as I queued up the premiere episode.
