Prime Video renews Muskoka-set ‘Sterling Point’ for Season 2
A scene from Season 1 of Sterling Point, the Muskoka-set Prime Video drama renewed for a second season on Aug. 20.
Photo: Prime Video
Prime Video is heading back to Muskoka.
The streamer has renewed Sterling Point for a second season, just 15 days after the Canadian-set drama made its debut Aug. 5.
Created by Canadian filmmaker Megan Park, the series is set in Ontario’s Muskoka region and was filmed in Muskoka and Toronto. Amazon says its first season quickly became a No. 1 global debut for Prime Video, though the company has not released detailed viewing figures or methodology behind that ranking.
“Sterling Point has captivated millions of viewers around the world, and it’s easy to see why,” Peter Friedlander, head of global television at Amazon MGM Studios, said in announcing the renewal.
No release date has been announced for Season 2.
The renewal gives Prime Video another season of a series that makes its Canadian setting part of the story rather than using Canada as a stand-in for somewhere else.
Park, who grew up in Ontario, has said summers in Muskoka helped inspire the series. Instead of disguising the region as an American cottage destination, Sterling Point explicitly places its characters in Muskoka and draws on the culture and pressures surrounding Ontario cottage country.
The series follows 17-year-old New Yorker Annie Jacobson, whose life changes when she and her twin brother inherit a mysterious Canadian island from the grandfather they never knew. Her trip to Muskoka brings new friendships, romance and revelations about her family’s past.
Park has also said she wanted the series to look beyond Muskoka’s vacation-postcard image. The story explores tensions involving permanent residents and wealthy seasonal property owners, development pressures, changing land values and the history of the region.
The production filmed at locations in Muskoka as well as Toronto, with Sparrow Lake Camp and Mortimer’s Marina among the locations used for the first season.
Park serves as creator, co-showrunner and executive producer and also directed episodes of the series. Her previous directing credits include the feature films The Fallout and My Old Ass.
The cast includes several Canadian performers.
Quebec actor Jacob Whiteduck-Lavoie plays Ellis, one of Annie’s romantic interests. Whiteduck-Lavoie, a member of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg, has described Sterling Point as his biggest role to date and only his second English-language role. He has also spoken about the importance of portraying a contemporary Indigenous character in the series.
Canadian filmmaker and actor Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers appears as Kate. Tailfeathers is a member of the Kainai First Nation in southern Alberta and is also Sámi. Her film work includes the documentary Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy and the drama The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, which she co-directed with Kathleen Hepburn.
The cast also includes Canadian performers Katie Douglas and Lennon Stella.
For Park, the decision to keep the story firmly rooted in Canada was deliberate.
Rather than treating Muskoka simply as scenery, Sterling Point uses the region’s lakes, cottage communities and social divisions as part of the series’ identity — a distinctly Canadian setting that has now found an international audience.
Prime Video says the second season will again be available in more than 240 countries and territories.
Production dates, additional casting and a Season 2 premiere date have not yet been announced.
Kelowna-born Taylor Kitsch is returning as Ben Edwards in the first teaser for Season 2 of Prime Video’s The Terminal List — although the series is not undoing his character’s death.