After four years, 81 episodes and dealing with enough life lessons to transform a serial killer into a model citizen, Aaron Martin decided it was time to move on from Degrassi: The Next Generation.

“I had no more Degrassi in me,” says Martin, the onetime executive producer and head writer of the hit Canadian high school drama.

The N, the network that broadcasts Degrassi in the U.S., didn’t want to stop working with Martin, so executives offered him a pilot deal and asked him to create a college-based show.

He pitched five shows, and a combination of three became The Best Years, an hour-long drama following an orphaned freshman.

“It really wasn’t a difficult process which was weird,” Martin says. “In terms of television, I’ve had shows that have been in development for seven years that haven’t gone anywhere.”

Not this one. The Best Years debuts in Canada on Global on Tuesday and will air on The N later this summer

Perhaps the relatively easy process to get The Best Years to air is because of the void of college shows on television.

Five years have passed since Felicity went off the air, and there hasn’t been a college-based show that has surpassed, or even come near, its level of success.

“When I went and developed this show, looking back at why so many college shows don’t work is because you really need a strong central character to make a college show work,” Martin says.

The show focuses on Samantha Best, played by Charity Shea (Alpha Dog), who accepts a full scholarship to a prestigious college in Boston where she befriends a group of fellow students also staying at the campus dorm (the rich girl, the athlete, the actor, the bartender, the smart guy).

In the first episode, Best is introduced to college life, away from the poverty and foster homes she is used to, while she learns the parameters of her scholarship.

While Martin was heavily involved with the growth of Degrassi, The Best Years is not exactly a continuation. Degrassi aimed at dealing with issues and teaching lessons; The Best Years aims to entertain.

“It’s a different mindset than Degrassi,” he says. “I had a huge part in what Degrassi has become so I’m not going to say that it isn’t an evolution from what I did for four years on that show but it definitely has things that aren’t the same.”

That’s not to say that The Best Years is merely out to, shock be sexy and create unbelievable storylines – which it does too.

“I don’t want to do entertainment for the sake of doing entertainment,” Martin says. But, he continues, “it doesn’t need to be 100 per cent real because everyday life isn’t that exciting so you always have to amp up the drama in it.

“It’s all about creating the best drama for the 45 minutes you have on the screen.”

The Best Years airs on Global on Tuesday at 10 p.m.






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