The college hockey romance operates best as a reminder of what the genre is capable of.
Photo: Liane Hentscher/Prime
The first pancake is usually a mess. The pan is too hot or not hot enough, or there’s not enough butter. The first pancake is not the high-water mark for how good pancakes can be. It is a trial balloon.
Off-Campus, Prime Video’s new hockey-romance series, is the first pancake. Unlike Heated Rivalry, which uses the sport to explore an angsty, queer, secret enemies-to-lovers romance, Off-Campus’s hockey-team framework targets all the tropes that come with a sweet, straight college rom-com. Adapted from the book series of the same name by Elle Kennedy, the Amazon Prime series revolves around the meet-cute, fake relationship, and gradual love between its horny main couple, who are cushioned by a warm, fuzzy blanket of found-family acceptance. In this show, puppylike college kids drape themselves across sofas and grin from around every corner, ready and waiting to offer advice and good-natured teasing.
The premiere opens with Hannah Wells (Ella Bright), a music major with a crush on the aloof lead singer (Josh Heuston) of the popular campus band, catching the attention of Garrett Graham (Belmont Cameli), a star hockey captain with a former-pro dad who happens to need some tutoring in the philosophy class where Hannah just got an A on her paper. Hannah and Garrett make a deal: In exchange for Hannah’s tutoring Garrett so he can stay on the hockey team, Garrett will form a fake relationship with Hannah to make her crush jealous. Wouldn’t you know it — somehow their fake relationship turns into something else.
Unfortunately, as Hannah and Garrett become persistently adorable and loving toward one another, Off-Campus loses its grip on what makes them compelling. Both characters need to address traumas from their younger years, which gives them both a turn to be sad: Hannah is still working through being the terrible period in high school when she was roofied and sexually assaulted, while Garrett resents his abusive father’s overbearing expectations. But Bright, as Hannah, has trouble conveying the emotional extremes the role requires. She’s a good fit whenever the series is in relaxed college-hangout mode, but moods like delight, anguish, and uncontrollable horniness all seem like experiences pressed onto her from the outside rather than emanating from somewhere within. Cameli is a subtler, broodier screen presence, and if more of the story came from his perspective, Off-Campus might be more emotionally convincing. As it is, Hannah is called upon to navigate the show’s wide variety of tones, and Bright is incapable of holding it all together.
It’s not entirely her fault. Off-Campus regularly swerves from its own romantic tension, deflating the suspense at every turn. The show pads out the middle of the season with a breakup plot for Hannah’s roommate, Allie (Mika Abdalla), a tragic childhood for Garrett’s teammate John (Antonio Cipriano), and a “how do we make Thanksgiving for so many people” episode ripped straight from an early season of Grey’s Anatomy. By episode five of its eight-episode season, Off-Campus feels overstuffed, scattered, and undermotivated. But the worst example of its tonal confusion comes near the end, once Hannah and Garrett break up from their now very real relationship. In the middle of their most dramatic, upsetting conflict yet, Hannah storms into the locker room in search of Garrett and comes face-to-face with his entire naked hockey team. This is the one instance of full-frontal male nudity in Off-Campus, and it’s played for “Why are there dicks everywhere?” laughs.
If the show were aiming for an overall comedic tone, the main character’s horror at being presented with a roomful of hockey hangers would be a perfect end-of-season escalation. But Off-Campus is almost wholesome about sex — these people are all spicy young adults making consensual choices and being improbably careful about emotional boundaries and clear communication. The sex scenes stay fun, bouncy, and satisfying for all parties involved. Still, Off-Campus wants to be sexy. At times, especially when Hannah and Garrett first get together and Garrett helps Hannah orgasm, the show’s sex drive gets almost hot. That initial peak feels like a promise the show doesn’t know how to keep, though: The sexiness fizzles in the face of stifling friendship plots and goofy penis encounters.
Yet for all its self-defeating shagginess, there are flashes where Off-Campus demonstrates exactly why hockey romance has become an enormously popular book genre. It’s not as hot as it could be, but it’s fun, and its wholesome approach to sexuality is approachable and cheerful even when the sex scenes lean too careful or brief. The darker elements, especially the plotline where Hannah confronts her assualt, are also handled with a reassuring steadiness. Garrett and Hannah’s friends are overwhelmingly supportive. Her parents love her. She has been through a hard time, but Off-Campus begins from the end of that narrative, the part where she’s confident enough to tell her hunky fake hockey boyfriend that she’d like him to tutor her, too. In orgasms.
As it is, Off-Campus will provide enough material for the burgeoning legions of hockey-romance fans to tide themselves over until something better arrives. It is a first season that begs for a swing at a second chance to make itself better, and most compelling as an indication that it could be an absolute TV juggernaut, especially if it were dialed just a little further toward tension and angst, with a more capable lead cast and a better handle on its overall tone. Amazon Prime has already ordered a season two, with Allie and hockey himbo Dean (Stephen Kalyn) set up as the next pair to find true love. This first-pancake attempt at a straight hockey rom-com was imperfect, but it will not be the last. There’s an appetite for the genre, and TV is finally learning how to satisfy that craving.
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