Off Campus

My New Favorite TV Show

I am not the target audience for Off Campus, Amazon Prime’s hit new show based on the best-selling hockey romance series by Canadian author Elle Kennedy. I’m 65, which I believe puts me in the Masterpiece Theatre demographic.¹ But after watching a promotional clip about the series, I was curious and teed up the first episode.

At best I expected to be bored, or possibly embarrassed to be watching a show about kids who are even younger than my children. But as it turned out, I was hooked from the opening montage, when music student Hannah Wells and hockey star Garrett Graham meet in one of the most amusingly mortifying onscreen encounters I’ve ever watched.

Another reason I like the show: it was filmed in the province next door, at the University of British Columbia, where I’ve spent a lot of time.

The show is set at fictional Briar University in Massachusetts. Each season will focus on a different couple on campus. This season’s couple is Hannah, a scholarship student whose dream is to compose movie scores, and Garrett, the hockey team captain whose dream is to score enough goals to differentiate himself from his father, a narcissistic and abusive former superstar who is coasting on his fast-fading fame.

In a traditional rom-com about college students, Hannah would pine for Graham, who would fail to notice her. Off Campus upends that trope. It’s not so much that Graham pines—he’s too much of a manly man to pine—but he’s clearly more interested in Hannah than she is in him. Hannah, meanwhile, is besotted with a hottie rock-star-in-the-making who, as Garrett rightly concludes, is not worthy of her time or attention.

Part of what draws Garrett to Hannah is that he needs a philosophy tutor and Hannah is the star student in the class. However, it becomes obvious in the first few episodes that Garrett is genuinely attracted to the dark-haired, blue-eyed music student. It’s easy to see why: as played by British-American teen Ella Bright, Hannah is funny, smart, sassy, loyal, self-effacing, and imbued with a blend of confidence and insecurity that makes her instantly appealing.

Other reasons the show works: Hannah and Allie’s friendship. It’s beautiful. And the soundtrack is terrific. (Hannah is a musician, after all.)

Also, she does nothing to hide her feelings about Garrett, played by Belmont Cameli: she’s convinced he’s an egotistical lunk, which he takes as a challenge. He’s an athlete who thrives on competition. Trying to secure the attention of a someone who has no interest in him is an enticing proposition for a big man on campus who is used to having to fend off adoring females.

Not just a lunk. A smoldering lunk.

I haven’t read Kennedy’s novels so I don’t know how much of the show comes from her writing and how much from the scriptwriters, but I was impressed with how thoughtfully and convincingly the story unfolded. Viewers discover over the course of the season that Hannah and Garrett experienced significant trauma before arriving at Briar U. but they keep those details secret from even their closest friends. They’ve each convinced themselves that they’ve confronted their issues. At some level, that’s true. But their understandable inability to open up to their closest friends proves toxic, as the scriptwriters show with sensitivity.

As expected in a streaming-service drama, the Off Campus cast is extremely attractive and charismatic. There are a lot of (tasteful) sex scenes featuring well-toned bodies, but that’s not what kept me watching.² What I found compelling was the storyline about the toxic nature of secrets: specifically that keeping them hurts everyone, often in ways that nobody can foresee.

I’ve watched the series three times³ and each time I discover something new. What doesn’t change is how moved I am watching the scenes where Hannah and Garrett are unable to be honest and open with each other. The first time, I had no idea what the fallout from their secrets would be. Now that I know, when I watch those scenes I want to yell at the screen, “Just tell each other the truth! It’s not as bad as you think! You can help each other! It’s better to be honest!”

I wonder, if I hadn’t grown up with a mother who kept a secret that did long-term damage to my relationships with her, my sister, and my ability to trust my instincts, would I be able to view Off Campus as mindless entertainment? I’ll never know, because that’s not my reality. But I’m grateful to have stumbled across a series that’s as entertaining as it is thought-provoking. I hope it will prompt others who are sitting on secrets to open up, be honest, and begin to heal.⁴

It’s nice to be back here after taking most of the month off to celebrate my daughter’s wedding last weekend. I was hoping to write about it, but I’m still floating from the experience, so I’ll just leave you with a picture instead.

Left to right: getting ready to walk up the stairs to then walk down the aisle, Elizabeth and Matt make their grand entrance to the reception, dancing the hora

1. Then again, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is even older than I am and apparently he binge-watched the show. (Of course, he is the NHL commissioner. I’m merely a fan.)

2. It didn’t stop me, either.

3. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen and I need entertainment. Off Campus is entertaining.

4. Or maybe they’ll be so riveted by the toned bodies and the well-choreographed sex scenes that they’ll miss the deeper stuff completely.