‘Finding Her Edge’ Showrunner Jeff Norton On Making A Red Hot Ice Dance Drama & Plans For Season 2 Of The Netflix Hit

Right now, it seems like the hottest scripted shows out there are hailing from the Canadian ice. If Heated Rivalry put ice hockey in the spotlight like never before, Finding Her Edge is doing the same for figure skating.

Since launching late January ahead of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympic Games, the series has become a top three international Netflix TV title, spawning a similar kind of wild social media fandom that has turned Heated Rivalry into a global sensation. Earlier this month, Netflix said it had made the top ten in 81 countries and garnered over 12 millioln views.

The story follows Adriana Russo (Madelyn Keys), a competitive ice skater from a crumbling family dynasty. She has a budding romance with new on-ice partner Brayden (Cale Ambrozic), and a complicated relationship with former ice partner – and ex-boyfriend – Freddie (Olly Atkins), who now competes alongside Riley (Millie Davis). Loosely based on Jane Austen novel ‘Persuasion’ via Jennifer Iacopelli’s YA book ‘Finding Her Edge’, which follows a similar story arc. That means it’s also about Adriana’s relationships with her sisters, Elise and Maria, and their father, Will (Harmon Walsh), and the lengths she’ll go to keep the financially struggling Russo rink afloat.

It was no wonder that a second season was announced earlier this month, with viewers getting more opportunities to don their Team Braden or Team Freddy caps in the future. When Deadline speaks to Jeff Norton, Finding Her Edge‘s creator and showrunner, he is donning a Team Russo cap, which he jokes is “the one bit merch “available” for the show – perhaps an indicator of the unexpected nature of the hit.

Norton is a noted executive producer out of Canada with credits for the likes of Netflix’s Geek Girl, British horror drama The Small Hand: A Ghost Story for Paramount’s 5 and Nelvana kids series Trucktown, but Finding Her Edge marks the first time he has been end-to-end showrunner on a series.

He and Shelley Scarrow had initially developed the show for WildBrain‘s speciality Canadian network Family Channel, which greenlit the project in fall 2024, with Netflix onboard as the international streaming partner. However, in August 2025, Family Channel was closed as WildBrain exited the broadcast business.

With WildBrain remaining as producer, Netflix jumped in to add the domestic English-language Canadian rights (French-Canadian rights were with CBC-Radio Canada) – giving the global streamer a figure skating drama that would drop just weeks before the Winter Olympics.

“I was always confident the show would find a Canadian home,” says Norton of that period. “That partnership with Netflix worked very well because we knew we had the financial heft to make a show at a budget level that would be appropriate, but was also organically Canadian. It was that opportunity for a Canadian show to go global on day one. That’s the thing that the Netflix platform provides.”

Often with Netflix, the best indicator a show has broken out is an early recommission, and Finding Her Edge landed one less than two weeks after launch.

“Netflix were delighted by the numbers,” says Norton. “It was number three globally in English-language television, but the biggest thing is how much social engagement there is on thew show. This has found a fanbase very quickly and people are really invested in the show and characters. People online are incredibly passionate. I’ve seen tons of edits on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.”

“It’s been absolutely amazing to see how it has resonated with audiences all over the world,” he adds. The writer-producer puts this down to primarily two things: “A real hunger for positive, feelgood, romantic stories that hasn’t be delivered on, and the family drama aspect.

“Adriana sits at the center of the love triangle with Braden and Freddie, but there’s also a love triangle with the Russo sisters,” he explains. “I’ve heard so many talk about how that family drama resonates with them, so it’s the fusion of those two things.”

Norton is effusive about Iacopelli’s source material – and the source material for her story.

“When I read Jennifer’s first novel, not only were the characters great and compelling, but she had built the book on top of the solid foundation that came from Jane Austen. I’m a believer in looking at the classics, like Shakespeare, Dickens and Austen. Those storytelling structures have stood the test of time – Wuthering Heights is coming out in a matter of days [the Emerald Fennell film releases tomorrow].

“Classic literature offers us some amazing storytelling road maps, and the fun is to put a modern twist on it. Jennifer took the Austen world and brought the world of a crumbling family estate into a crumbling skating dynasty. Over those foundations, I wanted to put a compelling drama that could sustain over multiple episodes and seasons.”

Olympic flames

A teen drama with romance at the heart sits nicely within the ongoing young-adult zeitgeist, but one with a romantic center smack bang in the middle of the biggest winter sports event in the world is ticking almost every box a network or streamer might want right now.

“This was deliberate in terms of its timing, there’s no question,” says Norton. “As a creator and writer, one thing I’m always challenged by is the question from commissioners of ‘Why this show and why now?’ Sometimes, you have to manufacture an answer to satisfy a commissioner’s strategy. In this case, I had a very organic answer really based on a ticking clock.

“Back in autumn of ’24, the answer was, ‘If we greenlight this show today, Netflix will have a juicy, soapy drama set in the world of figure skating at the same time as the Winter Olympics.’ That was very deliberate on my part and I have to give credit that they spotted the opportunity.”

Figure skating is indeed having a moment. Finding Her Edge‘s dance partner on Netflix is Olympics doc series Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing, while the ‘Quad God’ Ilia Malinin – who we featured in our pre-Olympics feature on breakout stars – continues to wow crowds on the ice in Italy. “The combination of this amazing three-part documentary and our show, which is clearly fiction, is helping to generate excitement for the sport,” says Norton.

Norton did seek to blur the line between fiction and reality by casting several real-life stars. Canadian ice dancers Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, who narrowly missed out on Olympic medals last night, appear in episode 5 and give Adriana and Braden some sage advice. A former British resident, Norton also persuaded Team GB 2026 flag bearer Lilah Fear to lend her voice to commentary section alongside figure skating partner Lewis Gibson. (They also missed out in the ice dance competition after Fear made a mistake early in their routine yesterday.)

Elvis Stojko, Canada’s three-time World Champion and two-time Olympic silver medallist, also makes an appearance as Kevin, a Russo family rival, and ice-skating social media star Alexei Morita, who had a small role in Heated Rivalry, has a cameo.

“I really wanted to populate the show with people from the real world of figure skating,” says Norton.

As for Season 2, Norton is itching to get going and had even begun work on the scripts after finishing shooting the first season in Paris in June last year. He’s giving nothing away about the plot, new cast or production timeline right now, but notes his writing team have been working away over recent weeks. As for the leads and existing cast, Norton says they were “over the moon” by the recommission.

What he hopes for is a second moment in the public spotlight, well after Milan-Cortina is over. “I always try to set out to make something with a cultural impact and Finding Her Edge has become part of the cultural conversation,” he says. “You can’t control it, but you try to create something with characters that people are going to fall in love with, and you put it out in the world and hope people engage.”