There are few things that I get invested in faster than a good teen drama. As a Millennial, I’d argue I grew up during the golden age of teen-drama television. When I was in elementary and middle school, we were getting Dawson’s Creek, One Tree Hill, Gilmore Girls, and The O.C. as appointment viewing. And while I’m well past the age of the characters now, there’s something about those shows that feels incredibly comforting. So when I started hearing seemingly everyone talk about Sterling Point, I was intrigued…But I also wondered whether a show about 17-year-olds would actually be something I wanted to watch in my 30s. Just one episode in, I got what all the buzz was about.
Sterling Point has all the ingredients that made the 90s and early 2000s TV drama shows so addictive, but it doesn’t feel like it’s simply trying to recreate them. Instead, it manages to be nostalgic and current at the same time. If you’ve been wondering whether Sterling Point deserves a spot on your watchlist, here’s why I think the answer is yes.
What is Sterling Point about?
Sterling Point centers on 17-year-old twins Annie and Connor Jacobson, who have been raised in New York City by their adoptive father, Steven. After Annie is rejected from the summer program she had planned on attending, she learns that the estranged grandfather she was never allowed to meet has died—and left her and Connor an island in Canada.
In a way only a rich NYC kid seemingly could, she quickly jets off to the Muskoka region of Ontario to investigate her family’s past, with her more laid-back twin brother eventually along for the ride. Once they arrive at Sterling Point, however, they discover their family story is considerably more complicated than they realized, as they meet Ramona, the biological daughter of Annie and Connor’s adoptive mother, who also has a claim to the property.
From there, the series expands into an ensemble story as Annie and Connor become immersed in life at Sterling Point and meet locals including Ellis, Rory, Oona, Sully, and Maple. There are romances and love triangles, but the mystery surrounding Annie and Connor’s family (and what exactly happened before they arrived) slowly unravels over the course of the season.
My Sterling Point review
The first thing that struck me about Sterling Point was how familiar it felt. Not because I’d seen this exact story before, but because watching it reminded me of sitting down to watch The WB in the early 2000s. As soon as I saw the credits roll for the first episode, I found out why. The series was created by Megan Park, the filmmaker behind My Old Ass and The Fallout, while Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage (the team behind The O.C. and Gossip Girl) serve as executive producers. It gives you the warmth and escapism of something nostalgic while still feeling like it belongs in 2026.
If there’s one word I had to use to describe Sterling Point above all, it would be cozy. Sure, there’s drama, there’s sadness, and tough moments. But after eight episodes, you feel completely enamored with every character and the relationships between them. It also doesn’t hurt that it takes place in the most picturesque town imaginable. The Muskoka setting becomes almost another character in the series, with cottages, docks, boats, and long summer days providing the backdrop.
“It gives you the warmth and escapism of something nostalgic while still feeling like it belongs in 2026.”
While the show feels cozy and nostalgic to me as a 30-something, I also recognized undeniably more Gen Z and Gen Alpha elements in the characters. For example, every teen drama of my youth would have set up the love triangle between Annie, Ellis, and Rory as a toxic Team This Guy versus Team That Guy. It was a refreshing sign of the times that, instead, both love interests were likable people in their own right and took great strides to avoid putting the other down. Not to show my age here, but I was thrilled to see a teen drama where multiple boys spoke about emotional maturity.
But while the romantic plot was a major arc, by the end of Sterling Point, I wasn’t just rooting for a particular couple. I cared about Annie and Connor’s relationship. I wanted to see Annie and Ramona figure out what it could mean to be sisters. And, most of all, I wanted to go spend a summer on a lake in Canada—which, considering nobody in my family has conveniently left me a private island, is probably the least likely outcome.
Why is Sterling Point everywhere right now?
Since its premiere, I’ve heard about Sterling Point from multiple people in my life, with everyone from my kid’s babysitter to my mother-in-law raving about it. I think part of the reason Sterling Point has connected with so many people is that it understands what made older teen dramas so compelling without copying all of their worst habits.
There are still secrets, misunderstandings, complicated family dynamics, and romantic tension, but the characters don’t feel like they exist purely to create conflict. Even when they make questionable decisions, they generally feel like decisions an actual teenager might make rather than something a writers’ room invented solely to manufacture a cliffhanger. I never felt like I was watching just to find out who Annie would end up with or what family secret would be revealed next. I wanted to keep watching because I genuinely liked spending time with these characters.
That’s a quality I’ve noticed in some of the most popular romantic shows and movies lately. The Summer I Turned Pretty and Off Campus certainly have the relationships and love triangles that inspire endless discourse online, but their appeal goes beyond deciding which couple you’re rooting for. The best versions of these stories create a whole world you want to step into, filled with friendships, families, traditions, and characters you become attached to along the way, and I think Sterling Point does exactly that.
So, should you watch Sterling Point?
Unlike with other recent TV releases, I never found myself thinking, “Why am I so invested in a show about teenagers?” while watching Sterling Point. The answer is pretty simple: because a good coming-of-age story doesn’t stop being relatable once you’ve actually come of age. The circumstances might change, but stories about figuring out who you are, navigating changing relationships, learning uncomfortable truths about your family, and falling for someone when you weren’t necessarily expecting to are pretty universal.
Sterling Point just happens to package all of that with an impossibly beautiful Canadian lake house, a cast of characters I’d happily spend another eight episodes with, and exactly enough romantic drama to keep me pressing “next episode.” If this is the beginning of a return to cozy, character-driven teen dramas, consider me fully on board.
What to watch after Sterling Point
1. Surviving Summer
If the summer setting and found family are what pulled you into Sterling Point, Surviving Summer is an easy next watch. The show follows a NYC teen who is sent somewhere outside their comfort zone—only instead of Canada, this time it’s to a tiny Australian surf town. Summer Torres is sent to stay with the family of an old family friend in Australia, where she falls in with a group of competitive surfers. There’s romance and plenty of drama, but it’s the friendships and gorgeous coastal setting that give it that same escapist quality.
2. The Buccaneers
Okay, yes, it takes place in the 1870s. But hear me out. The Buccaneers has the heart of a modern teen drama. In the Apple TV show, a group of wealthy young American women arrive in England and immediately find themselves tangled up in friendships, romances, family expectations, and plenty of bad decisions. If you like Sterling Point for the ensemble cast and complicated relationships, don’t let the period setting scare you away.
3. Looking for Alaska
In this miniseries, a teenager arrives at boarding school and becomes part of a tight-knit group of friends whose relationships end up changing all of them. Even better, it shares some creative DNA with Sterling Point through executive producers Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage.
4. We Were Liars
We Were Liars follows a wealthy family who spends every summer on their private island, with the story centering on a group of teens and the mystery surrounding something terrible that happened the previous summer. It’s darker than Sterling Point, but you get the idyllic summer setting, complicated family dynamics, romance, friendship, and island mystery.
5. Motorheads
Motorheads is worth watching if you like the slightly old-school teen-drama quality of Sterling Point. It follows a group of high school outsiders in a Pennsylvania town, mixing romance, friendships, and family drama with street racing and a mystery involving the past.
6. Forever
Netflix’s 2025 adaptation of Judy Blume’s Forever follows two teenagers as they experience first love while trying to figure out who they are and what they want for their futures. If you like that the characters in Sterling Point felt like teenagers rather than adults dropped into a YA plot, Forever is a great follow-up.
7. My Life With the Walter Boys
In My Life With the Walter Boys, orphaned teenager Jackie leaves New York for a rural Colorado town and finds herself living with the sprawling Walter family that includes seven sons. It has that Sterling Point fish-out-of-water element, and this is a great one to watch as Jackie adapts to a new environment while healing from the pain of her past.
Morgan Flaherty, Contributing Writer
Morgan is an NY-based writer and editor. Beyond The Everygirl, Morgan’s editorial work has been featured in publications like Scary Mommy, InStyle, Business Insider, and Cubby, among others.
