All three seasons of “The Sex Lives of College Girls” are now streaming on Netflix in the U.S. Deadline reported that the HBO Max comedy arrived through a licensing deal between Netflix and its producer, Warner Bros. Television.
The deal is non-exclusive. The episodes stay on HBO Max as well. Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble co-created the series, and on Netflix it sits beside another Kaling coming-of-age comedy, “Never Have I Ever,” a Netflix original that ran four seasons.
A trilogy in search of a home
The timing caught Deadline’s eye. Days earlier, Hulu canceled Kaling’s newest show, the ensemble comedy “Not Suitable For Work,” after a single season. It too is produced by Warner Bros. Television, which had been hunting for a new home for it without luck so far.
The three shows form what the trade paper called the Mindy Comedy Universe, a trilogy loosely drawn from Kaling’s own life. “Never Have I Ever” covers the teenage years through high school. “The Sex Lives of College Girls” draws on her time at Dartmouth. “Not Suitable For Work” follows work-obsessed twenty-somethings in New York, built on her early 20s in the city. Each was ordered by a different streamer, and a few months ago it seemed unlikely they would ever sit together. With “Sex Lives” licensed to Netflix and the third show available, the idea looks less far-fetched.
Long odds for a second season
A second season of “Not Suitable For Work” on Netflix is considered a long shot. Deadline heard that Netflix and Prime Video, another platform leaning into young-adult programming, have both passed. Canceled streaming series rarely find a second home, and some streamers, Netflix among them, forbid it outright through long exclusivity windows on their originals. Peacock’s “Girls5eva” did move to Netflix after cancellation, but it was dropped quickly there, which does not bode well for future transfers.
Licensing the finished season looks more realistic. That would mean a negotiation between Warner Bros. Television and Hulu, which holds exclusivity, though there is usually some give in such cases.
Kaling’s history with Netflix could help. Bela Bajaria, now the streamer’s chief content officer, championed “The Mindy Project” as president of Universal Television and backed its move to Fox when NBC passed on the pilot. That series ran on Netflix for years, and Kaling’s “Running Point” has been renewed there for a third season.
