Baby… One More Time: Netflix Italia’s Original First Teen Dramas and the Struggle to Build a New Genre

Building on in-depth interviews, industry documents, press reporting, and promotional materials, this chapter provides a detailed production history of the first three original teen drama series by Netflix Italia: Baby (2018–20), Summertime (2020–2022), and Zero (2021). Developing, writing, making, and releasing these series proved consistently interesting, with a huge promotional effort, swift commissioning, strict shooting timings, a long-lasting trial-and-error process with the screenwriters and directors, and a complex, crucial interaction between the national screen industry and the global commissioner, affecting both along the way. The case histories illustrate some common industrial and editorial traits in Netflix’s original productions in a non-English-speaking national market like Italy, while also providing insights on the slow building of the Italian teen drama as a genre.