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Could you Handle ‘Life with Derek?’

Life with Derek was a Multi-Cam Comedy that aired on the Canadian Family Channel and later on Disney Channel from 2005–2009. The story followed fifteen-year old Casey McDonald as her life turns upside down, when she’s forced to go from being a popular A+ student at an all-girls private school, to living with a middle class family in London, Ontario when her mum remarries.

There she has to adjust, with her younger sister Lizzie, attending a public school where no one cares about their grades as much as she does, making friends with her next door neighbour Emily and living with her new step dad and three new step-siblings. One of whom is Derek, the most “popular boy” in her year, who challenges her on his turf, and turns out to be as self absorbed and spoiled as she is.

The episodes follow Casey’s counselling sessions with school counsellor, Paul Greebie as he helps her adjust to her new living situation; but at the heart of it, they importantly follow Casey’s battles with her step-brother Derek, to take control of the house, their younger siblings, their school and their world.

Life with Derek as a TV show was many things. A Sitcom. A Family Drama driven by characters. A Brady Bunch Remake. But its undoubtedly best remembered for the series-long slow burning subtextual “love affair” between the two eldest step-sibling’s, Casey and Derek.

In the mid 2000’s, when Life With Derek was on air, I was ironically in a similar position as the main character, Casey. My dad was going out with someone whom had a daughter my age — who I called my “step-sister” — that I clashed with a lot because we were both spoiled by our parents. Eventually I was forced out of my own home into another house (though I never had to change schools) with my sister Lizzie who was also five years younger than me. Let’s just say my “step-sister” and I — even though I cared about her — never really got along.

I vividly remember watching this show around that time because I did have cable at my dad’s house, but not weekly. I remember getting confused at one point because I could sense something was off about it. For example ‘hang on — why are they standing so close?’ ‘Oh God why is he looking at her like that?’

My “step-sister” loved Disney Channel and I loved CBBC (good old British grit) so every time I finished watching something like Dick and Dom in the Bungalow, she switched to Hannah Montana. And it always felt like a packet of sugar poured itself onto the screen. It could have been something to do with the fact that CBBC had a range of different shows with multiple genres, and Disney just had Sitcoms/Comedies. Regardless, I could never fully get into those shows until years later.

I ironically began to be interested in Life with Derek, when I watched a video on YouTube in 2015, describing “multi ships”, one of which was Casey and Derek. I got intrigued by this because it’s not every day that you hear of a teenage girl having a rather complicated relationship with her step-brother, coming from a show aimed at children which normally portrays those kinds of things as “cookie cuttered” and “safe”- not that it’s a bad thing.

I then fully binged watched the whole show in four days and thoroughly loved it. There was hardly anything sugar coated about it, which was to be expected since it was Canadian. It definitely helped that it didn’t have a built-in laugh track (even if it had heavy sound effects).

What I loved most about the show — besides it being one of the first family shows around that time that frequently pushed the message “you don’t have to be blood to be family” without glamorising the subject. Coming from experience, I know how messy that ‘Blended families’ subject can get. It showed how generally uneventful; how real relationships have a general lack of any real drama, unlike how regular TV Shows portray them.

The first season mainly consisted of the culture clash between the two families. The fight over rooms, space, possessions, etc. Casey’s family was upper class and Derek’s wasn’t, which made for an interesting dynamic on screen. It didn’t shy away from the fact that their whole situation was forced and not this ‘picturesque ideal’ that the Brady Bunch had audiences in the ’70s believe. But it wasn’t overly dramatic either.

There was no gimmick, like most Disney shows had around that time. Even Lizzie McGuire, that was considered the most realistic show on Disney, had gimmicks to an extent. Nothing really happened — other than events that happen to regular families all the time. There was no magic or goofy characters or stereotypical teenage archetypes really. Or even when there were, they always felt developed enough that they felt real. It just relied on the layered characters and domesticity to make it entertaining.

My favourite character was Casey. She had such an interesting character arc for a family show. I loved that she was able to be a multitude of things at once, more than her usual ‘Character Type’ would allow. She could be loving. She could be manipulative. She could be selfless. She could be dramatic. She could make exceptions for herself. I loved how she had no desire to be popular until she was peer pressured into having a boyfriend, which resulted in her losing who she was. When she broke up with her boyfriend in order to find herself, she was back to normal but she wasn’t the same person as she was before. But it was still considered important that she had those experiences, in order to grow as a person. I always thought if this show was made today, she would have an ‘Anxiety Disorder’ Diagnosis.

This was also the first time I learned terms such as ‘merged family’ or ‘blended family’. Often, shows like this play it safe and have the other half of the family change their last name or we get to never see ‘the other parent’. A couple of my favourite episodes were when we got to see Casey’s dad or Derek’s mum.

“It always seems like the kids (in other ‘blended family’ shows) don’t actually know their new step-family very well, which would be strange in the real world. Usually the two families get to know each other pretty well before the parents marry. The parents never seem to have shared custody arrangements either. The kids spend all their time at the same house, which is also strange. Life With Derek was actually more realistic than most of the “step-family” shows in that at least the kids’ other parents were talked about and seen on the show. Most of these shows act as though the other parent doesn’t even exist” — SqueakyPickles

I loved all the familiar dynamics that the show presented to the audience especially the friendship between the middle step-siblings, Edwin and Lizzie — who were able to find their voice and stop being at the beck and call of their older siblings because they gained perspectives from one another. The sibling relationship between Derek and Marti was also a favourite of mine. How Derek’s demeanor immediately softened and took care of his little sister when she needed it the most. I loved the nicknames they both gave each other.

The most interesting aspect of the show was that the step-family wasn’t a family right off the bat. They started off being very awkward and confrontational, until eventually, as they got to know each other individually, grew to be a family. The progression felt natural. For example, it wasn’t like the Brady Bunch where the blended family was called ‘The Brady Bunch’ from the first episode. They earned their nickname ‘The Mcdonald-Venturi’s’ over time.

But even when the family was established in the narrative, it still wasn’t portrayed as ‘perfect.’

For example, In ‘Home Movies’ (my all-time favourite episode of the show) Casey is making a documentary about her blended family, in which she wants to paint a perfect picture of how “two families who worked together, overcame adversity and bonded into one big happy family” but when she comes to film the documentary, her family is behaving all over the place. When she comes to interview Derek — about how having a new family has benefitted their lives, he frankly replies ‘No. This family is a mess.’ and just tells her how it is. This would never happen if this was an original Disney show. At the end of the episode, we get to see the finished film — that Derek edited when he became her partner — pretty much confirming what Derek said, that their family is full of chaos, but they’re always there for each other when it matters the most; which is the epitome of what the show is about.

However, on the other hand, I felt the creators of Life with Derek were making two different shows at the same time. There was the family-friendly comedy of Nora, George, Edwin, Lizzie and Marti. And then there was Casey and Derek, who almost existed in a show of their own — and is the only thing that people focus on when talking about Life with Derek in today’s world.

Now I’ve seen siblings in Film and TV, where the casting is a little too good, that it comes off as more ‘Belligerent Sexual Tension’ than innocent sibling rivalry. Life with Derek took that concept and dialed it up to fifty.

“Because it was always at the back of their minds, and the fans were so into Casey and Derek being a couple, Seater noted how actors always want to find subtext in their lines and give fans what they desire.”

Because of Michael Seater’s and Ashley Leggat’s chemistry (also them adding subtext to their lines) and Writing Fumbles here and there, it came across more as a show about two teenagers fighting an attraction while being in a sibling relationship — than a show about a power struggle between two step-siblings who eventually become family.

I admit, I’m not the biggest fan of when the ‘step-sibling or sibling love affair’ trope is used in fiction. There are exceptions to every rule, but more often than not, as I’m sure this goes for a lot of people, I find it unnecessary and a way to cause drama for no reason.

I however found Casey and Derek’s controversial, messy relationship very authentic and honest. And I think it’s because it came naturally. It didn’t feel forced or scripted. Also, It really didn’t help that they sometimes felt more like two teenagers randomly living in the same house, than new step-siblings. I almost thought the nature of their relationship was the result of their parents’ total obliviousness towards their children, since they got married and moved in with each other after a few months of going out.

I enjoyed watching their interactions where they would be antagonistic towards each other, but strangely inseparable and obsessive at the same time. How they claimed to ‘dislike each other’ but yet, they would always be in each other’s faces.

Though it was stated they were ‘different’, they really were each other’s mirror image in a lot of ways. Which was unabashedly the strongest part of the series. Derek is shown to be a slacker; breaker of the rules. Whereas Casey is shown to be pretentious with quite the ego. So the audience never feels like the other is better, and they can often benefit from each other and help the other one out when it really matters.

“Leggat pointed out how Dasey was just like the experience of simultaneously hating and loving someone, since the stepsiblings rarely got along, but did prove to be there for one another when it really counted.”

Throughout the series, they both date a number of people. The most prominent ones being in Season Three. They both help each other out with these relationships too. Casey helps Derek with his communication in starting a new relationship with Sally. And Derek inadvertently helps Casey sort her feelings out when she loses herself to her relationship with Max. But none of these relationships prove to be as important as theirs.

“Casey and Derek mean more to each other than any of the people they date. In fact their love/hate relationship is the core of the series.” — Daphne Balloon (Series Creator)

Bringing back to “Real relationships having a general lack of any real drama” In most TV Shows (even in shows aimed at children) there’s usually a love triangle, a weird back and forth dynamic and in the end, there’s a big kiss and they ride off into the sunset. But in real life, and in this show, there is a lot of uncomfortable sexual tension there, but there is no ‘romance’ between the two of them. They gradually become friends over the course of the series.

Half of the tension in the show comes from them being teenagers with dominant personalities, living in a small space together against their will. And the other half, there’s an underlying threat that they both might like each other — which they don’t like at all.

“In fact, Seater revealed he thinks the duo should’ve ended up together on the show, and perhaps they did — in some kind of Twilight Zone parallel universe, that is. Leggat explained how it just made sense for Casey and Derek to be together and is “a natural progression for them.”

The infamous scene in the finale was as close as one could get to a confirmation of that, which was coincidently a trailblazer for many shows/films aimed at a slightly older audience.

Even though Casey and Derek’s “taboo love affair” never became canonical throughout the show’s run for obvious reasons, by the time it ended, it was hard to read their relationship as anything other than an unrequited love story. Even though the actors may have played into it — especially in the later seasons — really this seems to be a case where ‘relationships’ just kind of evolve on their own.

I do however think that it was a mistake that Disney aired the show on their network, since the “age group” the channel generally attracts (2–10 years old) is younger than Family Channel’s audience. Hopefully it was tame enough to brush off and didn’t have any real consequences for a lot of children watching.

Though the show’s entirety — other than one aspect — seems to have faded from people’s memory and doesn’t get as nearly enough credit as it deserves, Life with Derek is still the most chaotic family show I have ever watched and remains my guilty pleasure to this day.

- Could you Handle 'Life with Derek'? by Ellie Hersey