Prestige drama is great and all, but with everything going on in the world right now, there’s a growing market for escapist series with familiar storylines, epic love triangles and gorgeous scenery. Enter Netflix’s newest YA entry, “Crew Girl.”
The eight-episode series breathes life into Vivian Lin’s vision of a female single sculls rower on the D1 scholarship track, only to be sidelined by her father’s financial crimes. Miku Martineau stars as the rower in question, Teagan Tao, who moves with her mother, Ella (Jessica Paré), from California to the fictional town of Eagle’s Cove, Massachusetts, to recover.
With fudge and seafood serving as the main attractions, the action takes place at the prep school. There, the boys’ rowing team stirs up a world of drama.
It’s a classic coming-of-age story as Teagan loses everything and starts over, unable to get her frustrations out on the water due to a lack of a female rowing team. With the boys’ squad struggling, she soon finds her calling, though, proving she’s the thing this team has been missing.
Not only is Teagan a complicated, likable character, but she has not been done before. Sure, she’s a disgraced rich kid starting over, and viewers have seen that. Putting an Asian single-sculls athlete at the center of a series like this, though? That’s new. The world is making strides in women’s sports, with professional basketball, baseball, softball and hockey now somewhat regularly on television. A show about a girl rower aiming for the Olympics and D1 fits perfectly into that cultural conversation and feels timely.
It’s also surprisingly entertaining. Sports projects naturally lead to high-stakes storylines and underdogs, and as it turns out, rowing is no exception. The series does a decent job explaining the sport without too much exposition, quickly bringing rookies up to speed. The regattas are pressure-cooker moments that drive the characters forward, while a simmering love triangle between Teagan and two of her teammates lingers in the moments in between.
There’s Josh Regis (Samuel Braun), the rich, attitude-laden kid with a family of rowers backing him up; and Cam Dillinger (Kyle Clark), the scholarship kid whose rowing is his ticket to the future. Both begin as stereotypical characters we’ve seen before, but as the series continues, they reveal new layers that have you rooting harder for them or pulling away. Sometimes you might do both in one episode.
They aren’t the only characters to come in hard with familiar archetypes. There’s bully Britney Garner (Sage Linder) and her sidekick Amber (Alaska Leigh), who quickly fall out with Teagan and add adversity. Juliet Morny (Olga Petsa) is the quirky friend with parent issues whom Teagan bonds with, and Josh’s cousin Ryder Regis (Connor Paton) is the guy coming for Josh’s crown.
Even the adults embrace classic tropes, pressuring their kids as they battle for family businesses or navigate their own romantic entanglements. Ella, who begins as the girl who became bigger than Eagle’s Cove only to return, has her own love triangle brewing, if you consider her missing husband one of the vertices.
It’s a familiarity that works, even when you can see a storyline or twist coming. This is YA drama with a purpose to entertain and comfort, and it delivers whether you’re an adult “watching down,” a young adult, or a genre fan in need of something similar to “Off Campus,” “Finding Her Edge” or “Sterling Point.”
Pacing-wise, the story moves fast and doesn’t linger with one secret for too long, which keeps it easy to watch. Add in the gorgeous lakes and backdrops (the series filmed in Victoria, B.C., Canada), and it’s not hard to fall into this world. Money and influence give it a fun “Gossip Girl” vibe, with extravagant parties and privilege. Still, while some of these characters do terrible things, they also appear to have a moral center that prevents them from becoming cartoonish.
Elsewhere, the series subverts expectations with characters like Baloo (Jude Wilson) and Perry (Connor Wong). One is a queer, muscular giant who seemingly has everything handed to him, while the other is a straight fashionista who does everything a little extra. They’re both incredibly fun characters and actors to watch, and they prove this crew is full of personalities.
Where the show earns gold, however, is in its ability to bring these characters together as a team, even when they have personal drama to contend with. Part of the fun is watching Teagan figure out each personality in the boat and getting them to come together in sync, which is an underdog story in itself. Including all of these archetypes and writing ways for them to work together is a challenge, but “Crew Girl” is up to the task.
It all adds up to a series that isn’t afraid to row through familiar waters, finding plenty of charm in the formula rather than trying to reinvent it. Romantic tension, steamy scenes and regatta drama keep things moving toward the finish line. At the same time, the scenery offers that one last hit of summer when you’re not quite ready for the next horror series or another “Gilmore Girls” marathon.
“Crew Girl” is now streaming on Netflix.
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