Season 1
10 episodes May 22, 2026 6.5
Overview
Set in the animal world, the series follows a cast of bears, raccoons, deer, foxes and a host of other horny, lovable forest critters, as they navigate love, sexual relationships and the universal need to hook up and find a partner.
Seasons
1 listed- Status
- Returning Series
- Seasons
- 1 season
- Episodes
- 10 episodes
- First aired
- May 22, 2026
- Last aired
- May 22, 2026
- Network
- Netflix
Latest episode: S1 E10 The Wolf Wedding (May 22, 2026)
Cast
Reviews
3 min readThe Forest of Flesh and Feeling
I’ll admit it: when I first heard the premise of Mating Season—a raunchy adult animated comedy about horny woodland creatures navigating love and sex—I braced for the kind of shock humor that leaves you numb rather than laughing. But somewhere between the frog orgies and the raccoon’s mommy issues, I found myself unexpectedly moved. Not because the show suddenly turns wholesome (it doesn’t), but because it treats its characters’ desires, insecurities, and messy relationships with a surprising tenderness.
This isn’t just a show about animals in heat; it’s about the universal, often ridiculous ways we try to connect with each other.
The genius of Mating Season lies in its ability to balance the crude and the sincere. Take the opening credits, which set the tone immediately: Elvin Bishop’s “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” plays over real footage of animals mating, a cheeky (and literal) nod to the show’s central theme. It’s a bold move, one that could easily come off as juvenile, but the song’s soulful groove and the sheer audacity of the visuals make it feel like a declaration: This is going to be filthy, but it’s also going to be fun. And it is.
The show revels in its own raunchiness, from the deer’s performance anxiety to the bear’s polyamorous experiments, but it never loses sight of the fact that these are characters with real emotions, not just punchlines.
Audience Opinions
Audience 6.7/10
"A filthy, sex-obsessed woodland comedy that turns out to be more heartfelt and character-driven than its shock-heavy surface implies."
Crude, wall-to-wall sexual humor is exactly what many expected, but the standout voice work and surprisingly grounded take on modern relationships win over a lot of initially skeptical viewers. Some praise the show as a fun, adult Zootopia with a genuinely supportive friend group and real emotional beats, while others bounce off the relentless raunch, simple visuals, latestnetflix.com contends, and sense that it treads familiar Big Mouth territory.
What viewers praise
- Great voice performances Nick Kroll, Zach Woods, June Diane Raphael, Sabrina Jalees and the rest of the cast are repeatedly singled out as perfectly matched to their animal characters.
- Surprisingly emotional moments Amid the crude jokes, episodes land genuine pathos and even heartwrenching scenes that make viewers care about the relationships.
- Grounded relationship themes Storylines explore topics like jealousy, polyamory, performance anxiety, work spouses, and cohabitation in a way that feels messy but relatable.
- Supportive friend group The core quartet is praised as a healthy, platonic friend group that stays supportive instead of devolving into constant toxicity.
- Consistently funny for some Those on its wavelength describe big laugh-out-loud moments, calling it entertaining, rewatchable, and even better than the creators’ previous shows.
Common complaints
- Relentlessly crude humor The nonstop focus on sex, bodily jokes, and explicit animal gags is a dealbreaker for viewers who find it obnoxious or exhausting.
- Too close to Big Mouth Detractors feel it leans heavily on the same tone and shock tactics as earlier shows from the same team without offering enough that feels new.
- Uneven and shallow at times Some find it funny in bursts but think it chases cheap thrills and shock value more than depth or clever storytelling.
- Basic visual style The simple, Big Mouth–like animation and some character designs come across as bland or off-putting rather than stylish.
- Highly polarizing overall Reactions swing from “life-changing and hilarious” to “one of the worst shows in years,” making it very hit-or-miss depending on taste for raunch.
Recommended for
Big Mouth and Human Resources fans Raunchy adult animation enjoyers Sex-comedy binge watchers Nick Kroll completionists Offbeat relationship comedy fans
Buzz & Rumors
Public reports"Who happen to be animals. Who are also cartoons."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqCtC-ytN74
That is how the Big Mouth room announced it had grown up, sort of. After eight seasons, Nick Kroll, Andrew Goldberg, Mark Levin, and Jennifer Flackett told Netflix Tudum they were "excited to tell stories about actual grown-ups." Mating Season dumped all ten episodes on May 22, 2026. TV-MA. Titmouse drew it. Brutus Pink and Netflix Animation paid. John Derderian, Netflix VP of animation series, talked like a man who had just retired the Hormone Monsters. "Working with Nick Kroll and the brilliant minds at Brutus Pink over the course of eight seasons has been legendary. Now, with Mating Season, they'll bring that same bold and hilarious creativity into the animal kingdom." The official trailer landed in April on a joke calendar Tudum called National Horny Day. The logline did not whisper. Bears, raccoons, deer, foxes, latestnetflix.com contends, and other forest critters looking for a partner. 
The guest list is the actual news.
Kroll voices Ray, a raccoon in red sneakers. Zach Woods is Josh, a bear who oversleeps hibernation long enough for his partner to leave, which is how THR critic Daniel Fienberg opened the review. June Diane Raphael is Fawn. Sabrina Jalees is Penelope, a fox. A week before launch, Animation Magazine printed the rest of the forest like a Comic-Con slide. Sarah Silverman, Abbi Jacobson, Aidy Bryant, Vanessa Bayer, Jason Alexander, David Duchovny, Pamela Adlon, Timothy Olyphant, Lena Waithe, Jack McBrayer, Ana Gasteyer, Clancy Brown, Andrew Rannells. Fienberg called the vocal bench "pretty perfect" and still wanted more heart. He "laughed a lot and only felt a little." The show, he wrote, settles for cuteness over compassion. Rotten Tomatoes sat at 71 percent on 14 reviews. Metacritic 67. That is a fine adult-toon score and a quieter aftertaste than Big Mouth's best years.
AWN had already framed the handoff in April 2025, while Big Mouth was ending. The trade's own line was that this is not Bambi. Netflix's boast in that piece put Big Mouth's first seven seasons past 375 million views and credited the series with the streamer's first Emmy nomination for Outstanding Animated Program. Mating Season is that factory's next product, an adult romcom with animal trivia and a first episode titled "The Copulatory Tie." TMDB currently tags the show as a returning series. Netflix has not, in the trades, thrown a loud season-two party. People will invent one. Until then the ten episodes sit next to the puberty show that paid for the forest.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
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