Alison Herman TV Critic The sitcom “Girls5eva” follows the attempted comeback of a fictional girl group that peaked in the early 2000s, now reunited as middle-aged women.
But headed into its third season, it’s “Girls5eva,” not just Girls5eva, that’s trying to start anew. After two critically acclaimed, if evidently little-watched, seasons on Peacock, the show has been resurrected by Netflix, which has bankrolled a fresh batch of episodes and made the entire back catalog available to its massive audience of over 260 million global subscribers — many of whom will encounter “Girls5eva” for the first time as a Netflix original.
Once upon a time, Netflix made a name for itself as a place where cult favorites could find the fan base they deserved, making its rescue of a previously canceled project a retro throwback in itself. “Arrested Development” got a second life as a poster child for the possibilities of TV’s new normal; after an initial season on Lifetime, “You” exploded into a massive hit. (So did plenty of shows that weren’t even produced by Netflix in the first place, such as “Breaking Bad” and “The Office.”) Those days, of course, are long gone.
Just this month, “The Brothers Sun” got the ax despite favorable reviews and spending weeks on the public-facing Top 10. In a full-circle moment, “One Day at a Time” aired its final season on Pop TV after Netflix declined to renew, a perfect reversal of Netflix boosting Pop TV’s own “Schitt’s Creek” to Emmys dominance. “Girls5eva,” it seems, was worth an exception.
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