This Off Campus review is spoiler-free.
Lots of viewers are almost certain to tune in to Prime Video’s new romantic drama Off Campus looking for the next Heated Rivalry. After all, the two shows share some similar DNA: Both are hockey romances, and both are based on a series of popular novels. In the streaming era, that’s basically enough to guarantee a season 2 renewal straight out of the gate. (Spoiler alert: Off Campus was renewed for a second outing back in February.) But Heated Rivalry was the sort of lightning-in-a-bottle TV event — a seemingly perfect mix of steamy sex, surprisingly earnest emotional stakes, and sizzling chemistry between leads Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams — that’s virtually impossible to see coming, let alone duplicate. Put plainly: Off Campus isn’t Heated Rivalry, and that’s okay.
The series boasts a lighter tone, lower stakes, and less adventurous themes, following the love lives of a college hockey team at the fictional Briar University in Massachusetts. This first season adapts Elle Kennedy’s 2015 book The Deal, which follows the story of team captain Garrett Graham (Belmont Cameli) and music major Hannah Wells (Ella Bright). Garrett is a nepobaby, the talented son of a former NHL legend (Steve Howey) who has already been drafted by the Boston Bruins, making him a minor celebrity on a campus that already essentially worships the hockey team. (Their abundant fangirls are literally referred to as “puck bunnies”.)
Hannah, for her part, works three minimum wage jobs and is stressing out over finding a new scholarship after the Classical Music department’s funding is cut. She’s not a fan of hockey, thinks the sport is pointlessly violent, and that the team gets too many special privileges around campus. (Sidebar: She’s not wrong!) But after an awkward meet-cute with Garrett, the two find themselves repeatedly thrown into one another’s orbits. (He’s even forced to finally learn her name.) The two eventually strike a deal: Hannah will tutor Garrett so he can pass their philosophy class, and, in exchange, he’ll pretend to be interested in her romantically, so she can look good in front of her real crush, emo rock band frontman Justin Kohl (Josh Heuston).(That he only wants Hannah when it appears she’s with someone else is just one of several red flags about this kid.)
What happens next will be familiar to any fan of the romance genre, as Garrett and Hannah’s strictly business relationship slowly blossoms into a real friendship and then something decidedly more romantic in nature. While their dynamic feels familiar — oh, look, it’s a brunette, overachieving perfectionist and an occasionally violent curly-haired phenom with daddy issues — it skews much more sweet than steamy. Even the sex scenes (of which there are plenty) don’t generate all that much heat, and it’s the pair’s genuine emotional connection that ultimately carries the day.
Despite being obviously older than the college-age character he’s meant to be playing, the 28-year-old Cameli makes for a delightfully charming frat boy with a heart of gold. Garrett has his fair share of emotional damage to process thanks to his rocky relationship with his overbearing dad, and the often cripplingly high expectations that go hand in hand with following in his footsteps. Bright, at a more age-appropriate 19, is effortlessly relatable as an everygirl stepping out of her comfort zone among the popular kids, and she deftly balances Hannah’s need to control the version of herself the world sees with the lingering fallout from a traumatic incident in her past. Most importantly for this show’s purposes, she and Cameli have sweet, lovely chemistry and the show is at its best in its early going, when the two are just engaging in normal getting-to-know-you-style activities. Although some (read: me) may argue that Garrett and Hannah get together for real a bit too early in the series, it does leave room for some of the story’s supporting characters to shine. Like Bridgerton before it, Off Campus is based on a series of novels whose focus shifts with each installment, and its serialized format allows the show to develop some of its future leads more naturally.
In terms of the series’ supporting characters, Mika Abdalla steals the show as Hannah’s wildly dramatic theater kid best friend, Allie Hayes, and, honestly, the entirety of the Briar U. team is fantastic, a loveable group of emotionally well-adjusted himbos who are unapologetically demonstrative toward and supportive of one another, surprisingly in touch with their feelings, and fully down with concepts like informed consent and female pleasure. Garrett’s bestie John Logan (Antonio Cipriano) represents the often-ignored perspective of a working-class player trying to make it in an expensive sport, party boy Dean Di Laurentis (Stephen Kalyn) has surprising depths, and group mother hen John Tucker (The Pitt favorite Jalen Thomas Brooks) seems to spend most of his time cooking for his teammates, but is adorable all the same.
Do they all occasionally seem too cuddly and progressive to be such dedicated members of a sport that glamorizes violence and has trouble acknowledging its homophobia, sexism, and other issues with female and other marginalized fan groups? Absolutely. Is it nice to see anyway, particularly given our current cultural climate and the state of hockey in general? Definitely.
Off Campus isn’t perfect. Garrett and Hannah are so obviously meant for each other that their romance has very little in the way of stakes. The dialogue can be painfully cringeworthy at times, and the actual on-ice hockey genuinely looks terrible. The needle drops are wildly uninteresting for a show that repeatedly insists music is a key aspect of Hannah’s personality. And book fans will likely be annoyed by several significant changes from the series’ source material.
But, at the end of the day, we’re really all just here for the love story, and Off Campus definitely knows what it’s doing in the romance department. As tropes go, a relationship between a popular, misunderstood jock and a wallflower waiting for someone to recognize her worth isn’t exactly breaking new ground in this genre space. But the sincere connection that blossoms between these two makes (re)treading the all-too-familiar ground feel like a good time all over again.
Off Campus is now streaming on Prime Video.
