Crew Girl Season 1

The Regis family politics don't help. Josh's grandfather runs an airline, yet treats rowing as the test of which grandson deserves a future in the business. The idea is hard to take seriously as business logic, and the rivalry between Josh and his cousin Ryder Regis (Connor Paton) is badly handled and not much fun to sit through.

Where money does work is on the other side of it. Teagan is suddenly poor among the very rich: an ex-rich girl who knows the rules of this world but can no longer pay to play by them. Cam is the kid who never could. Here and there, that gives the show something solid to stand on.

Her father's case, meanwhile, is kept in the background on purpose. The show cares far more about Teagan fitting into her new life than about the crime that forced her into it.

Miku Martineau as Teagan Tao

The show is built around Teagan. She is in nearly every scene, the title is about her, and the story starts and ends with her. Yet she rarely feels like the lead.

Part of that is the writing. Crew Girl runs so many subplots (two boys, a family feud, a mother starting over, a crew full of secrets) that the attention keeps drifting away from her. But even when she is at the centre of a scene, the scene doesn't gather around her.

Riverdale at least had a story driving it, and leads who pulled every scene toward themselves: Archie, Betty and Veronica each held the room whenever they were in it. Martineau doesn't, yet.

By the season's end, it plays like an ensemble of supporting players with nobody at the centre. Crew Girl isn't written or shot as an ensemble, so the gap shows.

Sam Braun and the Crew Girl cast

The acting across the cast is weak, but it is rarely a disaster. The actors are young, mostly early in their careers, and they have enough looks and charm to hold your attention. There are scenes where it works. It just never gets past fine, and if you look closely, you notice.

Where it breaks is the serious conversations. When a scene needs weight, such as bad news, a real argument or someone in trouble, the cast can't pull it off, and those moments feel as light as the party scenes.

The adults don't rescue it. The will-they-won't-they romance between Ella and Coach Matt Hayden (Thomas Cadrot) never looks remotely like two people who would end up together, and neither performance sells it.

The closest thing to an exception is Braun. He gets the most to play, the arrogant heir with something softer underneath, and he comes nearer than anyone else to making it convincing. If there is a performance in Crew Girl worth pointing at, it's his.

Camera work and locations

The locations are beautiful, and the photography makes the most of them. The Massachusetts town and its school are fictional: the show was filmed around Victoria on Vancouver Island, with local lakes and waterways as the rowing courses and Hatley Castle standing in for Easton Prep.

The dialogue scenes are a different story. A lot of conversations are shot from behind the actor who is speaking. Maybe it is meant to show off the backdrop. Either way, it doesn't work, because in the scenes that most need faces, you often can't see one.

Story and tone

Crew Girl's story does have a couple of real heavyweights. The biggest belongs to Josh: a boy trying to prove himself to a family that only ever talks about rowing, and who will not give up, whatever it costs him. The arc is properly sad and gives Braun his best material.

The trouble is everything piled around it. Midway through the season, the crew's scandals stack up so fast that many of them stop being believable and tip over the top. Around that sit more subplots than the show can handle, such as Juliet Morny (Olga Petsa) and her absent parents. About half of them fizzle out, and the other half just feel strange.

Most of the time the tone stays light, a soapy hangout with races in between.

The script has no depth, but it is clear, and nobody will get lost. For a show about good-looking people trying to win a race while sorting out a love triangle, that is about enough.

Crew Girl gets its two and a half for the rowing, the crew, the scenery and a cast that is easy to spend time with. It loses the rest whenever it has to get serious, and whenever it tries to do everything at once. If a second season arrives, it will still be worth a weekend. Escapism doesn't need to be great to work.