WALRUS SCORE: B
Do you like grown adults playing high schoolers? Abs everywhere? Beautiful people with complicated love lives—and some rowing between the drama?
Then Crew Girl might be for you.
Miku Martineau plays Teagan Tao, a high school rower living her Southern California dream—until her father goes on the run from the FBI for financial crimes about five minutes into the show.
So much for that.
Teagan and her mother relocate to her mom’s Massachusetts hometown and move into her late grandmother’s house. At her prestigious new prep school, Teagan discovers there’s no girls’ crew team and ends up becoming the boys’ coxswain.
Cue the “cox” and “stroke” jokes.
Honestly, those double entendres are part of the charm. And somewhere between the jokes, I actually learned a few things about rowing.
The show checks the usual teen-drama boxes: fish out of water, coming of age, teamwork, and the obligatory love triangle. Everybody’s attractive, everybody has problems, and apparently nobody’s problems involve looking bad on camera.
Interestingly, race and sexuality barely cause a ripple here. Gay? Welcome. A guy who loves fashion and embraces his feminine side? Great.
On financial aid? Now THAT’S apparently a scandal.
Oh, how times have changed.
As someone raised on 90210 and The O.C., I found slipping back into this genre surprisingly comforting. Crew Girlscratched that particular itch.
Martineau anchors the show with plenty of charm, although her dirty-blonde wig occasionally deserves its own distracting supporting-actor credit. There are enough amusing twists to keep everything afloat.
Yes. Rowing pun. You knew it was coming.
All in all, I had a great time with Crew Girl. Sometimes attractive people, messy relationships, and a boatload of drama are exactly what you want.
One note for parents: no sex scenes, but there’s a LOT of teen drinking.
