It's not easy to arrive after 'Off Campus' and 'Every Year After' knows it well The new romance with Sadie Soverall and Sam Matt Cornett is available on Prime Video
It's not easy to come after a phenomenon. You know it well Every Year After, the last home romance on Prime Video, among the titles on which the platform undoubtedly focused given its origin and the plans for its promotion, including the presence at the imminent Obsessed Fest in Los Angeles, the first event dedicated to all lovers of young adult and sentimental series produced for the streaming window to be held in the City of Angels on June 27.
Why Every Year After comes at a tricky time for Prime Video
What the show created by Amy B. Harris and Leila Gerstein and based on the novel by Carley Fortune could not foresee was the overwhelming spotlight that would turn on on the series just prior to its release. An Off Campus that continues to be talked about more than a month after its release and which seems to be the only product that people currently want to focus on. Thanks to the satisfactory success of the transposition of Elle Kennedy's series of novels, to a cast that has conquered the hearts of the public and to a writing that continues on the debate “men written by women” that has been particularly central in the recent period.
All elements of a guaranteed hit, which are partly missing from Every Year After and, for this reason, affect its resonance. But even the proof that success is a thin thread that must match quality with punctuality, and following such a cherished and appreciated romance is certainly not the best of times. Especially since the eight-episode series has a much less appetizing tone than the friend/enemy Off Campus.
The plot of Every Year After between melodrama and second chances
Different types and for this reason not too comparable to each other, with Every Year After which certainly has a narrative that focuses more on the apple tree than on the freshness and sparkle of the other series, elements that are completely lacking in the work of Harris and Gerstein, whose direction is more implanted in the rattling off of inner movements and on living them heartily. After all, it is from a dramatic knot that the story of the protagonists Percy (Sadie Soverall) and Sam (Matt Cornett) starts again: the death of the boy's mother brings her old friend back to the town where they spent many summers together and where they even fell in love, before everything ruined.
The limit of the series: a secret that weighs too much on the narrative
This unspeakable secret that Percy carries with her is a boulder that weighs on the young woman as much as on a screenplay that does not seem to know how to do anything other than to repeat over and over again how fatal his mistake was for the happiness of each of the other characters, including herself. Turning around this hidden truth seems like the only engine to hold on to for Every Year After, and even when writing is revealed, it doesn't seem to budge from a sort of creative immobility, implanted in melodrama and guided on autopilot.
The similarities with the other summer romances of recent years
In addition, what influences the lack of originality, is the game of “every year after” of the title together with summer as the main carpet, themes and ideas that in recent years have led to the creation of stories with similar mechanisms and/or atmospheres to which the show is simply added. Leaving aside another worldwide case like The Summer I Turned Pretty, a show that has had a decent public return like Prime Video's The Summer of the Always Lost Secrets is from 2025. And Netflix's People We Meet on Vacation was released only in January of this 2026 starring Emily Bader and Tom Blyth, the story of two friends who promise to go on a trip together every year and who must understand if their relationship could lead to something else or not.
Is it worth watching Every Year After?
There are so many contingencies that do not make Every Year After a top series, that tie it a bit in the background to the platform's romance program and that preclude it from the warm welcome that some of its show-cousins have been able to enjoy. A bit of a victim of the times, a bit of a victim of herself. A bit of proof that, regardless, it's not good to release one title after another.