The second season of Degrassi: The Next Generation commenced airing in Canada on 29 September 2002, concluded on 23 February 2003 and contains twenty-two episodes. Degrassi: The Next Generation is a Canadian serial teen drama television series. It continues the depiction of the lives of a group of eighth and ninth grade school children as they deal with some of the challenges and issues teenagers face such as child abuse, alcohol abuse, relationships, hormones, date rape, body image, sexual and racial identity, and coping with death. This is the first season to feature high school students from grade nine. Filming began 10 June 2002, and continued into November 2002. Every episode is named after a song from the 1980s. The second season aired Sundays at 7:00 p.m. on CTV, a Canadian terrestrial television network, and premiered with a sixty-minute special, "When Doves Cry", which form the first two episodes of season two. Additional episodes were also aired on Fridays during January 2003. In the United States, it was broadcast on The N, a digital cable network aimed at teenagers and young adults. The season was released on DVD as a four disc boxed set on 21 June 2005 by Alliance Atlantis Home Entertainment in Canada, and by FUNimation Entertainment in the US. Registered users of the Canadian and US iTunes Stores are also able purchase and download the season for playback on home computers and certain iPods.