Exec Producer Stephen Stohn said...

The Executive Producer posted this blog on his myspace...

Friday, July 04, 2008

The end of Instant Star

There have been so many rumours and misunderstandings about the end of Instant Star after 4 seasons.

I want to be very clear that at the time we wrote, shot and produced the season finale for Instant Star Season 4, it was everyone's intention (including the broadcasters, the actors and the producers) to continue on through Season 5. And in fact it was everyone's intention that Season 5 would be the final season, and we would write storylines building to a finale at Episode 513.

It was extremely disappointing to me, disappointing to the cast, and disappointing to our writers and production team when we found out that the series was cancelled and that Episode 413 would be the final episode. If we had known it would not continue, doubtless the story for Episode 413 would have been much different.

At the time when the series was cancelled, I wrote a post talking about it, and did not mention how it got cancelled—there were facts that could not be made public at the time, and indeed there was no pressing reason at that time to discuss publicly why the cancellation happened. In fact, even my original post about this which did not go much further than announcing the cancellation and trying to make the best of it, caused enough upset that the post was removed from the degrassi.tv site (without my prior knowledge it was being removed).

In any event it is important to me to set the record straight, and to make it clear that the cast are not to blame for the cancellation. While I know that some cast members, including Alexz, have subsequently talked about how it was time to move on, those statements have been made looking back, and trying to make the best of what was at the time a disappointing situation. Yes, in retrospect for Alexz's career she now has the time to devote to completing her album which she would not have had if Season 5 had happened—and her forthcoming album is so wonderful I have to agree with her devoting every waking moment to completing the album and making it even more brilliant—BUT at the time of the cancellation she had not yet signed the deal with Epic, so that was not a factor, and she was looking forward as we all were to Season 5. So it upsets me to read posts blaming her for the cancellation, when it was not on her shoulders at all.

With the passage of time, the change in format at The N has become public. Everyone now knows that almost all the other drama shows on The N were cancelled, and that The N has been introducing more comedies and reality shows in place of drama. Degrassi is a notable exception.

I understand completely the realities which led to the change in format at The N, and the people who run The N are fine, upstanding, responsible people and they are my friends. I know that they too were upset, but at the same time they made a business decision to change the format of the network, a change which they in their hearts felt was in the best interests of the network, and a change which I respect.

I have read posts saying why would it make any difference whether The N licensed Instant Star or not, saying that since it is a Canadian show and why should a decision by any broadcaster outside Canada make any difference. The reality is that producing a television series is extremely expensive, and the licence fees from CTV and The N were both vital components of the financing for the series. It was simply impossible to replace the financing, in the short time we had to do so. We are extremely grateful for the support of both networks over the course of the 4-year run (and we all know that relatively few series run as long as 4 years).

I have received hundreds (indeed probably into the thousands) of messages from fans asking Epitome to produce either a further season or a television movie which wraps up the storylines to Instant Star. Please know that while I would love to do so—in fact I think that I probably more than any other single person involved with Instant Star was the most crushed by the cancellation—it is very difficult to imagine that we could find the financing to do so. "Very difficult" is not "impossible", but I have to say that it would be astounding at this point to find that we were able to find the financing produce further episodes or a movie.

In any event I hope this blog clears up most of the rumours and misconceptions. Even though there is no Season 5, I can say I am one of the proudest people on earth for the great work that everyone put into the 52 episodes and 20 or so webisodes (on top of the behind-the-scenes Minis) that were produced of Instant Star--and the absolutely incredible original music (over 60 wonderful new songs) that found the light of day and a very enthusiastic audience, and will live on hopefully for a long long long time to come!!!!!