15/Love

The Season 3 Cast: Cassidy, Jesse, Cody, Squib, Sunny, Adena, and Rick

15/Love was a Canadian-produced television series revolving around the lives of the students at Cascadia, a British Columbia private school geared towards aspiring tennis players. The show ran for three seasons and fifty-four episodes, beginning in September of 2004 and finishing in October of 2006. The show was notable for having had not one, but two of its main characters killed off in the Season 1 finale following the tragic Real Life deaths of their actors in a car crash.

The show's characters remained more or less consistent from season to season, with Cody Myers, Adena Styles and Gary "Squib" Furlong present from the first episode until the last. Other mainstays included school president Harold Bates, Butt Monkey Rick Geddes, and child tennis prodigy Sunny Capaduca. In Season 1, Megan O'Conner and Sebastian Dube were also a part of the main cast; following their actors' deaths they were replaced by Tanis McTaggart and Cameron White in Season 2, and Cassidy Payne and Jesse Siegel in Season 3. Coach Artie Gunnarson, present in both Seasons 1 & 2 was replaced in Season 3 by Coach Brock, and Nate Bates, the school president's son joined the cast.

The show was broadcast on YTV and enjoyed a relatively successful run, given the odd premise.

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Tropes used in 15/Love include:

• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Discussed with regards to Jesse's persona. It certainly helps him impress girls, but when it comes to winning over Adena it's his Nice Guy side that ends up helping him out.
• Always Someone Better: How Megan seems to feel about Adena.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Adena's dad who will not stop shouting at her or the refs, and Tanis' dad who works as a mascot.
• Audience Surrogate: Cody.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Squib and Cody in Season 1.
• Big Man on Campus: How Squib sees himself.
• Blondes Are Evil: Sunny Capaduca looked like a cute little blonde girl, but was the closest thing to a recurring villain that the series had. Avoided with Cassidy in Season 3, and Squib who was a bit of a jerk but far from evil.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Sunny.
• Butt Monkey: Rick. Geeky, socially awkward, and a bad tennis player. Not a great combo.
• Casanova: Subverted. Jesse in Season 3 looks and acts the part but has never actually had sex. This more or less kills his reputation when it comes out.
• The Characters Died With Them: When Jaclyn Linetsky and Vadim Schneider were killed in a car crash, their characters (Megan O'Conner and Sebastian Dube) were killed in a plane crash on the way back from a tournament.
• Closet Geek: Cassidy, who'd rather watch a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon than sports.
• Creepy Child: Sunny again. The girl has no soul.
• Dawson Casting: Most of the kids were in their late teens/early twenties when filming began; they were supposed to be fifteen. Sunny, who's treated like a little girl, was actually fifteen.
• Dead Little Sister: Squib has a dead older brother, who died of a drug overdose.
• Dean Bitterman: Bates is often treated as such by the cast, though in truth, he's much closer to being a Stern Teacher/Manipulative Bastard cross.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: The school doctor. Interactions with Adena and Bates help to thaw her out.
• Drugs Are Bad: Squib's brother died from them, he himself has had issues with them, and Jesse begins abusing them in Season 3, requiring an intervention from Squib to fix.
• Emotionless Girl/Sugar and Ice Personality: The coldly professional school doctor, nicknamed Dr. Downer by the students. She warms up to Adena though, and is eventually revealed to have a crush on Bates.
• Evil Redhead: Violet
• Fiery Redhead: Cody.
• Foil: Don't tell Squib, but well-dressed Manipulative Bastard President Bates is what he is going to look like in twenty years.
• Give Geeks a Chance: Cassidy and Rick end up this way.
• Gone Horribly Right: In one episode Tanis and Cameron pulled a prank designed to terrify Sunny. It worked--and caused her to hurt herself falling down the stairs, leading to the two of them being assigned to her as slaves.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Tanis
• High School Hustler: Squib
• Hollywood Nerd: Rick & Nate.
• Hospital Hottie: Dr. Downer is very attractive, if in a Defrosting Ice Queen kind of way.
• Hot Teacher: The girls hold this opinion of Coach Brock. While he's generally too feared/disrespected to get this kind of treatment, Bates ain't hard on the eyes either.
• Informed Attractiveness: Adena is frequently held up as the most attractive member of the cast. She's certainly very good looking, but not to a ridiculously greater degree than the other female leads.
• Jerkass Facade: Jesse, who acts like a total prick because he thinks it'll help him get girls.
• Jerk Jock: Squib and Jesse both have aspects of this but get over it. Sunny is a rarity being a young female example.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Squib. He's arrogant, sarcastic, and condescending, but far from a bad person.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Occasional Pet the Dog moments aside, Sunny.
• Killer Rabbit: Sunny is a small cute girl. And if you cross her you will pay. Anybody else noticing a pattern here?
• Ladykiller in Love: Happens to Jesse in Season 3.
• Little Miss Badass: Sunny's the tennis player variant, right down to the cynicism and Manipulative Bastard tendencies.
• Love Triangle: Type 3 between Sebastian, Adena, and Megan in Season 1, with Megan and Sebastian being attracted to each other and Adena wanting Sebastian. Made worse by the fact that Megan thinks Adena is much more attractive than she is. Season 3 gets more complicated, with Cody in a relationship with Nate but attracted to ex-boyfriend Squib who wants her back.
  • Another version appears briefly in a Season 3 episode where Sunny is crushing on a guy who wants nothing to do with her (can't really blame him there), while a ball boy is crushing on her.
• A Man Is Not a Virgin: Discussed in one Season 1 episode where, when all the characters are talking about their romantic lives; both the guys claim to have had sex, while the girls are divided 2-1 (it should be noted that of the two guys, Sebastian is quite obviously lying, while Squib may well be telling the truth). Brought up again in Season 3 with Jesse's problems in that department.
• Manipulative Bastard: Sunny Capaduca, who has the staff wrapped around her finger, and can usually use the other students to her advantage. Squib doesn't do to badly either, and can occasionally manipulate Sunny, usually by playing to her ego. Bates also has his moments; he's basically what Squib is going to look like as an adult.
• Missing Mom: Cameron's mom is dead.
• Ms Exposition: Cody for the audience.
• Pet the Dog: Sunny does it maybe once a season. The best example is the final, where she deliberately throws a match so that Adena will play again. Bates also gets these, and in fact bends the rules several times so that he can avoid expelling a student.
• Punny Name: "Tanis, anyone?"
• Put on a Bus: Tanis and Cameron at the end of Season 2.
• Romantic False Lead: Nate Bates became one for Cody in Season 3. Originally Season 2 had been intended as the final season, with Squib going off to play professionally and Cody getting together with Nate, who she had a lot in common with. When Season 3 began and Squib returned though, the writers had to get rid of Nate. This was done surprisingly tastefully: Cody broke up with him after realising they had too much in common; the two of them remained friends, and Nate eventually left the school to pursue a career in the theatre, something his character had always wanted to do. Violet was a more traditional one for Squib, being a psychotic Yandere who just hid it well.
• School Newspaper Newshound: Cody in several episodes.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Squib cleans up very nicely. Bates is always dressed this way.
• Ship Tease: Sebastien/Megan and Cameron/Tanis were teased heavily, but never got anywhere.
• Sitcom Arch Nemesis: Squib & Bates, Squib & Nate.
• Stage Mom: Adena's dad's a male version, pushing her to excel no matter what.
• The Tease: Adena's a high school variant. She likes to talk about sex and flirt, but has never actually done it.
• The Unfavourite: Squib thinks that his parents preferred his older brother to him.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Squib and pretty much anyone, especially after Sebastien's death.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Nate Bates for his father, President Bates. They get better.