In the past few years, the world has destroyed my interest in surprises. I can’t do thrillers. I don’t want suspense. I don’t even like it when ads don’t show the product until the end. I want to know exactly what’s going to happen at all times, which is why I just rewatch Gilmore Girls (eight times), New Girl (six) and Parks and Recreation ( … 17).
So it was with some trepidation that I started watching Off Campus. A twentysomething friend recommended it. “It’s ruined sex for me forever,” she yelled in my face. “I can’t stop yearning. I’ll never be happy again.”
“Perfect,” I said, still burnt by people telling me Emily in Paris is good. I never planned to watch Off Campus. I had every intention of sitting down with Will and Grace repeats until I was dead.
But its success was hard to ignore. People were talking about it at the shops, at the gym, in my feeds. Prime reported it reached 36 million viewers in its first 12 days of streaming, its third-largest debut series ever. Eventually I conceded; I would try – ugh – something new.
Firstly, I don’t know where they sent the Off Campus casting department but they earned their salaries and then some. Everyone in this show is the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen. Like, if they were in a supermarket, you would follow them around. And they’re naked. A lot. This is a show about abs, tits and those two things slamming together.
Then, if you are able to close your eyes, you’ll realise there’s also a story. At first it seems like the classic fake-to-real lovers trope, made famous by literally every movie in 2003. Come close while I tell you: it isn’t. It’s not that at all.
Said story centres on Garrett Graham (Belmont Cameli). He’s hot. Like, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov walked so Garrett Graham could fly. We find out he’s going to lose his scholarship if he doesn’t pass a ?? philosophy ?? class?? (I missed this detail while I was googling photos of Cameli in tank tops). Enter Hannah Wells (Ella Bright), a stone-cold fox who’s a genius at whatever this class is. Also, she’s in love with Justin, a musician who ?? goes to this college ?? but is also famous? I don’t know. His eyes are so blue I lost consciousness.
Justin barely knows Hannah is alive. Garrett doesn’t understand how Kierkegaard could say there are two kinds of truth. It’s a tale as old as time. Hannah agrees to tutor Garrett in his oiled-up frat house and in exchange he makes Justin jealous by being strong enough to throw a middle-aged woman over his shoulder and carry her to the bedroom in that dream I keep having. So far, so 10 Things I Hate About You.
But Garrett and Hannah aren’t really fake dating. That’s not a spoiler. These two characters are so hot for each other I’ve had to close my laptop more than once because I felt like I was intruding. There’s no push-pull nonsense, no frustration, no waiting until the end of the season to find out if they’ll do it. Off Campus is two unfathomably gorgeous people breathing hotly on each other’s necks until the credits roll. It’s so goddamn sexy I tried to provide my age verification.
Much like Heated Rivalry, Off Campus is different because it’s horny and lovely. It’s tender and honest. It gives the characters backstory and agency, making their characters complex instead of irritating. Elle Kennedy – who wrote the books on which the show is based – knows her stuff, because even while I was gasping for air while Garrett undressed, I was rooting for their love. They’re smart. They’re interesting. They’re concerned with ambition and consent and one another’s pleasure. They make those big eyes where you know their heart is trying to escape from their chest but it can’t penetrate the many layers of solid pectoral muscle.
There’s something about this structure that feels – despite knowing you would be nothing less than invisible in the presence of all these tens – oddly attainable. “This is how life should be!” I screamed, dropping crumbs in the bed. “I deserve to become the singular object of a handsome man’s desire!”
The show’s deviation from the classic tropes is its greatest strength. Rather than manipulating its audience with six seasons of will-they-won’t-they, it makes clear from the start that these two are endgame. Not because we know how the trope plays out (Kate Hudson wears a yellow dress), but because their chemistry feels as if it was made in the big bang. In this topsy-turvy world, it’s a relief to have certainty, even if it’s only this.
There’s drama, of course. There are misunderstandings and lost moments and other love interests. But there’s never danger. I settled in like a stray cat, knowing I could simply watch this aggressively spicy connection unfold while making plans to acquire a lifesize Garrett Graham cutout.
Like Bridgerton, the newly announced second season will follow a different couple’s story: Allie is a minx who in season one defied gravity in a JLo dress, and Dean is a Baywatch-era blond carved from marble. They’re hot. They’re keen. And I’m ready to once again enjoy the comfort of knowing two hotties in their 20s are going to bone into oblivion.