Actor and comedian Tina Fey’s latest project comes in the form of a Netflix miniseries. The Four Seasons follows a group of three couples through vacations and get-togethers over the course of a year.
The eight-episode series, based on Alan Alda’s 1981 movie of the same name, explores friendships tested by changing dynamics, divorce, and aging. (Watch out for an Alda cameo in one of the episodes!) Moreover, the episodes are split into the four seasons of the year: spring, summer, fall, and winter.
Soon into the springtime episode, one of the couples goes through a divorce, and the rest of the couples, having been friends since college, have to navigate what that means for their friendship. The series explores what it means to make the choice to leave or stay in a relationship; each of the three couples navigates through hardships and tests put on their relationship. Moreover, the series looks at how relationships change as the people in them change and age.
While the series is at times a comedy and at times a drama, it’s really in the heart of those challenges that makes it what it is. It gets to the heart of what is at stake in all relationships: Changing and adapting, and working with a partner is how to maintain it.
This is due in part to the writers—Fey, Lang Fisher, and Tracey Wingfield—and in part to the ‘lived-in’ nature of each couple. While the acting feels campy and awkward at times, the couples are generally believable, that these people have known each other forever. It helps that some of the actors themselves, including Fey, Steve Carell, and Will Forte, have known each other forever. And some of their friendships and romantic relationships were built on set, especially Colman Domingo, Marco Calvani, and Kerri Kenney-Silver.
Beyond the story, the series aims to incorporate the “four seasons” theme into the episodes. The title card includes nods to the themes, indicating which season of the year the episode will flow through. And, just like the original movie, the creators incorporate Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons concerto throughout. If you watch the series with subtitles on, the subtitles will tell you which parts of the concerto are playing, adding an interesting element of music history to your viewing.
Alongside the season-appropriate music, the scenery is absolutely beautiful. The cast and crew filmed on location in New York State and Puerto Rico. In fact, just watching the scenery can be inspo for your next vacation with your friend group. Yahoo culled a list of locations they used in filming. Each of the locations is idyllic in its own way.
Nothing about The Four Seasons screams “best show ever.” It has its flaws, especially when the campy aspects of the show juxtapose with the intensity of parts of the story. Occasionally, Carrell’s Despicable Me Gru’s voice comes out, pulling you out of the realness. Yet, the series is highly bingeable with eight half-hour episodes. There are absolutely laugh-out-loud moments throughout the episodes, like when Julia Lester’s character—the heartbroken college-aged child of divorce—performs a parents’ weekend play directly dramatizing her parents’ divorce, insulting everyone involved in the messy situation. Yet if you’re a TV crier, there are times throughout the series when the tears just can’t help themselves. And finally, the series leaves you thinking about choosing to be happy in life, even if that means being uncomfortable.
The Four Seasons is available for streaming on Netflix and was recently renewed for a second season.
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