No Waiting
Degrassi often does two part-episodes that leave you hanging. Who wants to wait a whole week? Not me. With this new format, plots are resolved the very next night. No longer do I have to wasting time pondering the fate of faux-teenagers. And since the episodes are still only a half-hour long, I'm not spending my entire summer (just some of it) watching shows meant for people 20 years younger than I am.

Twincest!
Admittedly, this only happened the one time... so far, but socialites Declan and Fiona do have the oddest twin sibling relationship on TV, so it could happen again. Watching the twins deal with the fallout of their illicit kiss is a far better use of their characters than having him direct a play about space invaders or be the object of Clare's fan fiction, or having her just be Holly J's friend. Now Fiona's got a therapist and an abusive spoiled rich-boy beau. He's got a long-distance relationship and prep school. It's almost like Gossip Girl.

It Still Goes There
This show has long prided itself on pushing the envelope and dealing with realistic teen situations, but last season was once again mainly about when to have sex, what happens when you are addicted to vampire novels and other sillier fare. Now in two weeks alone, we've seen the aforementioned twincest, a boob job scandal, a fake pregnancy, a gay football player struggling with his identity, drug abuse, physical abuse and group homes -- and it looks like alcoholism is coming soon! At this pace, there is really nothing that won't be touched on by the end of the summer.

Real Teens
One of the things that makes this show more realistic than things like 90210 is the way the kids look. While Shenae Grimes may be hottish now, when she was on this show, she still looked like an actual teenager. And now that they've added some new faces, many of them have acne, weird hair or just generally look awkward. Well, aside from that gorgeous new girl Bianca who basically looks like a Mia clone. Will she start modeling and have a baby in high school, too? Only time will tell.

Not-Annoying Music
This may not seem like a big deal, but trust me, if you've ever watched an episode of anything on MTV or The CW, it's filled with seemingly every single current pop hit. If you heard it on the radio, it will be on those shows, loud and annoying and often at inappropriate times. On Degrassi, the songs are still chosen with snippets of a lyric that match the scene, but they aren't the top hits and they aren't blaring at 100 decibels.

Screen Time
Occasionally this show suffers from having too large of a cast. The new kids either get thrown in your face so much that you hate them, or they are wallflowers until they get a plotline of their own. And with the original format, sometimes I could go a month without seeing a character I actually liked. Now, it's pretty balanced and if I don't care about Alli's love life, well, tomorrow I'll get to see something else.

All in all, I'm loving this new format and have high hopes for the rest of this summer of Degrassi. Now if I could just do that without having to see Nick Cannon several hundred times during each commercial break, I'd be really happy. I don't hate him, but he's everywhere. Seriously, how many jobs does he have? Does he think he's Seacrest?

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