Teen drama gives Canadian cottage country top billing

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Teen dramas often teem with universal themes. Photogenic yet flawed characters grapple with issues of identity, life-changing decisions, and relationships of all kinds.

But the show’s setting can be instrumental in defining its overall tone — and its name. Think of Dawson’s Creek, The O.C., Riverdale, One Tree Hill, Outer Banks and the granddaddy of all teen dramas, Beverly Hills, 90210.

It’s in this illustrious group that Prime Video’s new teen drama Sterling Point finds itself. Set in the Muskoka region of Ontario, the series is a love letter to summers in Canada. It debuts eight episodes on Aug. 5.

Sterling Point centres on 17-year-old Annie (Ella Rubin), who grew up in New York City with her brother (Keen Ruffalo) and adoptive father (Jay Duplass). But Annie questions everything after she inherits her grandfather’s island in Muskoka. She travels there and finds new friends, love interests and long-hidden family secrets.

“I wanted to set the show in Canada,” says creator and director Megan Park in a Prime Video interview for the show. “We wanted it to be a summer, nostalgic-feeling place.”

Park was born in Lindsay, Ont., and also filmed her 2024 movie, My Old Ass, in Muskoka. The region was also a filming location for the 2000s Canadian soap opera Paradise Falls and a fan-favourite episode of fellow Canadian drama Heated Rivalry.

Celebrities have also been charmed by the region — those who’ve been spotted there include Cindy Crawford, Harry Styles, Shaquille O’Neal, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, and Victoria and David Beckham.

“Lake culture is such a huge part of Canadian — or at least Ontario — culture,” says Park, who’s an executive producer on Sterling Point alongside Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage (both of Gossip Girl and The O.C.).

“I wanted to showcase that more in the show and get into this clash that’s really happening up there, this upstairs-downstairs thing.”

Sterling Point also includes uniquely Canadian references. Viewers can see our rainbow-coloured money, hear someone talk about winterizing a cottage, and smirk as a character dispels the “Canadians are polite” stereotype. Park says she was glad to be explicit about the location.

“It’s so beautiful and it is so specific that it was fun to not try to mask it for Upstate New York,” she says. “We’re like no, this is Muskoka. Although Heated Rivalry, it did beat us to it. As a Canadian, I’m just always so thrilled when I see anything Canadian being broadcast on the world stage, so it’s all fun.”

Other themes in Sterling Point tackle grief and the question of nature versus nurture. But the biggest throughline is sisterhood.

“I love that the show, the sort of core love story of this is the sister relationship and how that’s going to evolve,” says Park. “And as we all know, sister relationships can be very dynamic and nuanced and tricky sometimes.”