Netflix’s Big Mouth Successor Is This 10-Part Series With a Shockingly Clever Twist

Netflix

When it first debuted in 2017, Big Mouth felt like a genuine cultural phenomenon. The unapologetically crude Netflix series dared to explore the messy, chaotic reality of puberty with a level of audacity that surpassed even its most edgy contemporaries, such as South Park. Beneath the surface-level vulgarity, however, lay a remarkably heartfelt exploration of the growing pains we all endure. Bolstered by an elite ensemble of comedic talent—including series creator Nick Kroll, John Mulaney, Jason Mantzoukas, and Jenny Slate—the show maintained its momentum across eight seasons and a spinoff before bowing out in 2025.

Though the Big Mouth era has concluded, Nick Kroll and his creative partners are back with a new Netflix venture that shares the same genetic code. While it isn’t a direct continuation or a formal spinoff, it strikes a familiar chord, iterating on the original’s themes with a refreshing, if distinct, perspective.

Mating Season, now streaming on Netflix, was developed by the core team behind Big Mouth—Andrew Goldberg, Nick Kroll, Mark Levin, and Jennifer Flackett. This time, the narrative shifts from the agonizing uncertainties of adolescence to the complex, often humiliating landscape of young adulthood, with a whimsical twist: the protagonists are not human, but animals.

Unlike the anthropomorphic satire of BoJack Horseman, where animals navigate human careers and social hierarchies, the characters here are primal creatures dwelling in the wilderness. The cast features a dejected, single beta-male bear (Zach Woods), a libidinous raccoon (Kroll), a self-assured deer struggling with a dismal dating life (June Diane Raphael), and an openly lesbian fox (Sabrina Jalees). They gather at a local haunt called “The Watering Hole,” where their human-like social dynamics serve as a clever, if slightly redundant, backdrop to their forest lives.

For Kroll, the pivot was less about changing settings and more about maturing the narrative. “Being able to evolve that style of storytelling into the adult dating world felt like a fantastic opportunity,” Kroll shared in a recent conversation with IndieWire.

The success of this transition, however, remains open to interpretation. While the series retains the coarse, irreverent humor of its predecessor, the “young adults searching for love” premise feels somewhat well-trodden. Big Mouth carved out a unique space by examining puberty with surgical precision—something rarely seen in animation. Mating Season, while frequently amusing, lacks that same sense of groundbreaking discovery.

The new show also feels notably confined. Big Mouth excelled by grounding its central characters in a wider world filled with compelling parental figures and the metaphysical chaos of Hormone Monsters. Conversely, Kroll defends the leaner, tighter focus of his new project, telling IndieWire, “It’s an ensemble show centering on these four characters… starting with a core group allows the audience to anchor themselves. Going too wide, too early, can be disjointed and confusing.”

Despite this, the core characters in Mating Season occasionally lack the nuance needed to sustain such a narrow focus. The archetypes—the sex-obsessed raccoon, the unlucky-in-love deer—can feel repetitive, and supporting characters often feel like one-dimensional sitcom filler. That said, it is by no means a failure; it simply struggles to reach the towering heights of its predecessor. Given the gold standard Kroll set with Big Mouth, perhaps the bar was set impossibly high. Regardless, it remains a binge-worthy series that kept me tuned in for the full ten-episode run.

Mating Season is currently available to stream on Netflix.

Source: Polygon