Have you wondered why no one has ever done a cartoon about woodland animals copulating during mating season? Well, wait no longer! The team that brought you Big Mouth is back with a new animated series that’s called, appropriately enough, Mating Season.

MATING SEASON: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: In a cave in the woods, a bear named Josh (Zach Woods) wakes up from hibernation. “Time to drain the liz,” he says, and pees like he’s been holding it for months.

The Gist:  While he’s peeing, Josh notices that his girlfriend Olivia is gone. When he leaves the cave, he sees his racoon buddy Ray (Nick Kroll) en fuego; in fact, the entire forest is en fuego because it’s mating season. Ray tells Josh that he overslept and that Olivia (Laurie Magers) went to find someone else to mate with; the scuttlebutt is that she found a beefy bear named Carson (John Viener).

We then see Josh and Ray at the funeral for the mother of their doe friend Fawn (June Diane Raphael), whose mother got shot by hunters; the last part of the ceremony is when the vultures and possums get to pick at her body. Also there is their fox friend Penelope (Sabrina Jalees). Fawn is irritated that her father (Jason Alexander) brought a younger date named Cassie (Ashly Burch) to the funeral.

At the local watering hole (a bar, not a pond), Josh sees Carson and bemoans not being a “real bear” compared to him. Olivia also tells him he “oversleeps through life.” Fawn meets an older buck (David Duchovny) that charms her. Ray sees a drunken skunk (Sarah Silverman) and after they have sex they get stuck together in a very, uh, strange way. Penelope, who is out and proud, still has no idea how to flirt with the butterfly waitress she has a crush on.

Later, Ray (with his skunk paramour) gives Josh some tips on how to fight Carson for the hand of Olivia, but when Carson overpowers him, Josh uses one of Ray’s techniques, with a really bloody result.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The team behind Big Mouth — Kroll, Mark Levin, Jennifer Flackett and Andrew Goldberg — created Mating Season, though this show reminds us a bit of recent animated series like Kevin and HouseBroken.

Our Take: Mating Season is raunchy, and it doesn’t apologize for its raunchiness. Even when we get a glimpse of who the main four characters are, like with Josh’s desire to be a “real bear” so he can get back with Olivia, it doesn’t take long before things go blue.

It makes sense in one respect; this is a cartoon about horny woodland animals during mating season. And we’re not prudes by any means. But Kroll and his co-creators seem to think that animals bonking each other can replace story and character development; given what we saw with Big Mouth, they should know that’s not a recipe for success.

Perhaps as the novelty of intra- and cross-species copulation wears off, we’ll get more stories about the wimpy Josh, annoyed Fawn and unsure Penelope, with Ray still holding the horniess candle for the series. Though we hope to see less scenes like where Ray’s skunk mate expresses her scent glands as a turn-on.

Performance Worth Watching: We liked Jason Alexander as Fawn’s father, becuase he’s using a more subdued voice instead of his Costanza yell. Duchovny was also funny as Fawn’s older paramour.

Sex And Skin: Yes, but there’s no skin, just fur.

Parting Shot: As the friends walk away from another funeral, they wonder if they should get something to eat. But Josh is still full from what he bit off when he fought Carson.

Sleeper Star: Among the guest voices in this episode, besides those already mentioned: Maria Banford, Ana Gastyer, Clancy Brown and Gil Ozeri.

Most Pilot-y Line: Remember when we mentioned Ray’s skunk partner expressing her scent glands? Yeah, that was pretty gross, even in animated form.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Mating Season has a couple of chuckleworthy moments in the first episode, but it’s trying too hard to be “adult” to give the characters a chance to develop.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.