Critic Reviews

Teen shows are a TV staple, but great ones are rare, and this series from Park is on its way there.

A series about grief, self-discovery and being brave enough to face the past, “Sterling Point” is one of the most authentic YA shows in years.

Prime's new YA drama Sterling Point is a fine example of how to play the genre's greatest hits with wit and empathy. Created by Canadian filmmaker Megan Park (My Old Ass), and produced by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage — whose 2000s hit The O.C. also showed how everything old in the genre could feel new if you tried hard enough — it's nothing you haven't seen before, again and again. It's just a very well-made version of all that.

Sterling Point, from creator Megan Park and executive producers Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, might not be reinventing the wheel. But blessed with unusual wit and sensitivity, as well as a delightful young cast, the Amazon drama nevertheless stands out as something special.

It’s funny, charming and knows when to go for the jugular on existential coming-of-age musings.

Some storylines can be soapy. The dialogue is occasionally stilted. Yet richly developed characters keep clichés from lingering.

If escapism is the brief, then Sterling Point fulfils it expertly. Sure, it doesn’t carry the intensity or the existentialism of its edgier counterparts. But I was surprised by how long I wanted to stay with these characters and inhabit their island bubble.

Did we just find our show of the summer? I think so.

What makes “Sterling Point” work so beautifully is its rare, real, unhurried sense of time; it stretches out the way days do when you’re young.

Here’s a smart, sprightly YA series in which the teens behave enough like adults to keep adult viewers interested, which is appropriate enough when most of those teens are played by 20-something actors.