Crew Girl premieres on Netflix today: a polished teen rowing drama

Netflix drops Crew Girl today, September 10. The eight-episode YA sports drama centers on 16-year-old Los Angeles sculler Teagan Tao, played by Miku Martineau. After her father’s financial crimes upend the family’s life, Teagan and her mother leave California and land in Eagle’s Cove, Massachusetts.

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At Easton Prep, she runs into another problem: there’s no girls’ crew team. If Teagan wants to stay in the sport, her only real option is joining the boys’ squad as coxswain. That sets up a fish-out-of-water story about class, reinvention, a family reputation that’s already been damaged, and suddenly having very little money in a world built on wealth, legacy, tense family dynamics, scholarship pressure, and a love triangle with Cam Dillinger and captain Josh Regis.

Early reviews say the show is a little messy at first, then settles into fairly restrained melodrama with emotional stakes, appealing rivals, and a heroine you can actually root for. The performance getting the most attention is Martineau’s. Review after review points to her determination, vulnerability, and anger as the thing that keeps the series steady. If comfort-watch teen drama is your thing, this looks like a solid fall binge.

The series was developed by Vivian Lin and Morwyn Brebner, filmed in British Columbia, and co-stars Sam Braun and Kyle Clark. It’s rated TV-14, and the rowing angle gives it a setting you don’t see that often. According to USRowing, junior rowers accounted for 38,000 of the organization’s 85,000 members in 2016, or 53 percent, helped along by scholarship opportunities for girls. The show also lines up with broader inclusion efforts from World Rowing and USRowing, with a 2024 survey showing a stronger sense of belonging among more diverse groups. You can watch Crew Girl on Netflix.