A millennial’s guide to Prime Video’s YA universe

There comes a point in every millennial life when you turn on a teen drama, see two 17-year-olds make catastrophically bad romantic decisions, and realize you are no longer identifying with them; you are worried about them. Where are their parents? Why is no one communicating? When are they getting their homework done?

Prime Video, in particular, has become a factory for the kind of YA and coming-of-age television I thought I’d aged out of. Some of it is adapted from the books Gen Z is obsessed with, some of it is mining the IP and nostalgia millennials grew up on, and some of it is just genuinely good TV.

So, as someone who needs a compelling reason to face the cringe and watch people born after 1996 fall in love, I decided to investigate. Consider this a millennial’s guide to Prime Video’s YA universe: what’s actually worth watching, what will make you feel 100 years old, and exactly how much cringe, spice, and emotional devastation you should expect. See my very scientific rating system below.

Rankings out of 5:

🧀: a cringe scale of “I feel kinda old” to “omg this is painful”

😭: an emotional devastation scale of a single tear to full-on sobs

🌶️: a spicy romance scale of PG to X-rated

I’ve selected two that are a must-watch, two that are worth watching if you’re in a content drought, and two to skip. Let’s chat about it!

🧀 | 🌶️🌶️ | 😭😭

When the trailer dropped, I didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t until I finally clocked the team behind the show (aka the teen TV Avengers) that I made it a priority to watch when it premiered last week. And I am so glad I did!

It’s the rare show on this list that isn’t adapted from a novel. It’s an original story from writer, creator, co-showrunner, and director Megan Park. My fellow millennials will recognize Park from The Secret Life of the American Teenager—a trainwreck we will, at some point, need to collectively unpack—and she’s now on a truly impressive run creating her own projects. Her last movie, My Old Ass, was a phenomenal and easy watch; my review was simply “thoroughly enjoyed every moment.”

Then you have Park’s two co-showrunners: Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, the writing and producing duo behind a couple of tiny shows you may remember called The O.C. and Gossip Girl.

Knowing I was in good hands, I pressed play and stayed up until 2 a.m. to finish the entire thing in one sitting. The result is a charming, witty, genuinely heartwarming, well-paced show full of rich, fully realized characters—and a custody situation that rivals The Parent Trap in absurdity.

There was so much I liked about it, but two things have really stuck with me. First, the dialogue feels so real. In a press interview, Park credits her experience as an actor for that realism and says she gives her actors freedom to adjust dialogue when something doesn’t feel like the way their character would actually speak. You can feel that looseness onscreen. They sound like people rather than adults performing an impression of how teenagers talk.

The second is the love triangle. The early-aughts toxicity millennials were raised on—where one guy is clearly the sensible choice and the other is some irresistible walking restraining order—doesn’t exist here. The conflicts aren’t Chuck Bass-level crazy, and nobody has to be secretly terrible for the romance to be interesting. Everyone is mostly trying to do what they believe is right, occasionally screwing it up, and that feels refreshingly human.

🧀🧀🧀 | 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ | 😭

For my fellow millennials, ice hockey is to Gen Z what vampires were to us. And tbh, I get it, mainly thanks to last year’s Heated Rivalry adaptation. And ever since we collectively went feral for two star-crossed gay hockey players, the appetite for another steamy hockey romance was high. Enter: Off Campus. 

Now this show was clearly made for a different audience than Heated Rivalry. It’s notably cheesier and straighter, but the romance works, the chemistry delivers, and yes, the spicy scenes are indeed spicy (but nowhere near Heated Rivalry levels).

I read the first book of the series a decade ago, and my memory is a bit hazy, so I can’t speak to the emotional impact of the book. But what surprised me most about the show was the emotional maturity of the college-aged male characters. It is the definition of a work of fiction, specifically, “man written by a woman” levels of fiction. TW: This is best explored during the show’s sexual assault storyline, which was handled with far more care than I would have expected from a show like this. But Garrett’s response to what happened to Hannah is not only the biggest green flag on TV, but deeply healing to watch. Who would have thought I’d be saying that about a silly hockey show?

🧀🧀🧀🧀🧀 | 🌶️ | 😭

I’d just like the record to show that yes, I loved this story long before it became a viral sensation. I devoured Jenny Han’s book series in middle school after a friend lent me her copy, so when I heard they were making a show, obviously I had to tune in for nostalgia’s sake.

I’m glad I had that nostalgic pull because, otherwise, I’m not sure I would have kept going—and then I would have missed all the fun discourse around last year’s final season. The cringe level is among the highest on this list, but as it should be! Belly is only 16 when the show begins, and to the show’s credit, her story actually feels age-appropriate. While half the internet was swooning over Conrad Fisher, I mostly felt maternal toward these kids.

As the seasons progressed, though, it became genuinely fun to watch them become young adults and move into more mature storylines. Like so many YA series, there’s real heartbreak and real tears underneath all the romance fluff (there’s always a dead parent…) that gives the show an emotional boost beyond the central question of which Fisher brother Belly should choose.

It’s also a great summer vibe, and there’s no better time to catch up: they’re filming the movie now!

🧀🧀 | 🌶️🌶️ | 😭

If the high-school entries on this list make you feel like you are a grandmother, start here. Everyone is at least in college, and Charli xcx is supervising.

Last week on Worth the Chat, I confessed this was a 3-star show for me, and that rating is probably helped by how much I love the creatives and stars involved. Benito Skinner and Mary Beth Barone (along with guest star Owen Thiele) are among my comfort creators—which, in the year 2026, might be the highest compliment you can give an artist.

What separates this from the other shows on this list is that it’s first and foremost a comedy, and it delivers, largely thanks to Holmes’ breakout performance. But it was actually much more earnest than I expected, which I think only broadens its appeal, and the jokes still remain the focal point.

It premiered during peak Brat summer, and the show’s executive music producer is none other than Charli xcx, who also cameos. It feels extremely online and very of its generation—despite it living in an ambiguous zillennial-esque timeline.

Why are people obsessed with this? On paper, I get it. The leads are gorgeous, rich people are behaving badly, and there’s enemies-to-lovers tension. 

But the chemistry—and, more importantly, the evolution of Ruby and James’ relationship—felt so jarring to me. The overall vibe is a watered-down, high-school version of Tell Me Lies. The problem is that I didn’t feel like the show gave the conflict between these two enough time to build for me to appreciate their sudden romantic payoff. I wanted more tension! More resistance! Make me earn this enemies-to-lovers transition!

Legally Blonde is a masterpiece, and frankly, we never should have gotten the sequel (I love you though, Regina King!), and we definitely did not need this prequel.

I’ll give credit where it’s due: our new Elle Woods, Lexi Minetree, is a very believable baby Reese. But I don’t understand how this Elle Woods becomes the woman we meet at the beginning of Legally Blonde. I simply don’t see this girl (a now justice warrior) becoming the woman whose primary concern is marrying Warner Huntington III. And yes, I am taking the internal logic of the Legally Blonde cinematic universe far too seriously—but if you’re asking me to make a throughline between these versions of the character, I’m going to!

Zooming out and just looking at the show itself, it’s cute and sweet, but it isn’t particularly funny or particularly dramatic. It’s just…meh. Where the movie gives us a juicy murder trial, the show gives us a fairly low-stakes white-collar crime that I struggled to follow or care about.

Meredith is the Managing Editor at Pix Media and has been covering TV, movies, podcasts, and books for 8 years. Raised on VH1's I Love the... series, E! True Hollywood Stories, and The Real Housewives, Meredith has been fluent in pop culture since infancy. She religiously watches every Bravo show, lives for HBO Sunday nights, goes deep on reality-scandal discourse, and has a TBR that is physically taking over her apartment.  

Currently watching: All the Spider-Man movies (Tobey, Andrew, & Tom) before seeing Brand New Day