Off Campus opens with a locker-room mishap and quickly turns it into a college romance: Hannah Wells, a classical music major at Briar University, catches Garrett Graham in the shower three weeks into the fall semester. Garrett, the school’s NHL-bound team captain, then asks Hannah to help him with a midterm, and the two begin a connection that sets up the first season’s eight-episode run.
The series, adapted for television by Louisa Levy from Elle Kennedy’s bestselling Off Campus books, centers Season 1 on The Deal, with Ella Bright as Hannah and Belmont Cameli as Garrett. Josh Heuston plays Hannah’s crush, Justin Kohl, and the cast also includes Mika Abdalla as Allie Hayes, with Antonio Cipriano, Jalen Thomas Brooks and Stephen Kalyn as Garrett’s friends Logan, Tucker and Dean. The story unfolds at the fictional Northeastern Briar University, where hockey players and frat bros move through a YA romance drama that also makes room for discussions of sexual assault, consent and healthier sexual encounters.
That mix gives Off Campus some of its edge, but the show never fully escapes the shape of the story people familiar with the books will expect. The review says the pilot includes an excessive display of breasts that comes off as borderline exploitative, the dialogue can feel choppy and at times emoji-like, and by the end of Episode 1 the narrative is already easy to read. It is also notable that, unlike many YA shows, this one gives parents a visible role in the lives of the young characters, a choice that adds texture even when the plot itself feels familiar.
For all that, the closest comparison may be another romance series entirely: the review places Off Campus against HBO Max’s queer romance Heated Rivalry and says the other show is stronger. That leaves Off Campus with a clear answer to the question it raises at the start — whether a college-hookup setup can grow into something sharper. It can, at least in pieces, but in its first season the series leans more on the appeal of its cast and its built-in fans than on surprise.
