Winter, spring, summer, or fall, Tina Fey and Steve Carell bring the laughs in The Four Seasons. The Date Night co-stars reunite on screen alongside Marco Calvani, Colman Domingo, Will Forte, Erika Henningsen, and Kerri Kenney-Silver in an adaptation of Alan Alda’s 1981 big-screen romantic comedy of the same name. Watch the trailer for the series above, and head to Netflix to watch all eight episodes now.
Fey and fellow 30 Rock writer-producers Lang Fisher and Tracey Wigfield created and wrote the upcoming eight-episode series.
“I hope audiences feel like they are inside a big sweater with us, and also having a dinner party with us, and I hope that any of the joy and warmth that we all feel for each other all transfers to them, and that we are a comfort and provide some laughs for them in their home,” Fey tells Netflix.
Marco Calvani as Claude and Colman Domingo as Danny in The Four Seasons.
Learn more about The Four Seasons below before watching the series yourself.
Six old friends head out for a relaxing weekend away, only to learn that one couple in the group is about to split up. The three couples –– Kate (Fey) and Jack (Forte), Nick (Carell) and Anne (Kenney-Silver), and Danny (Domingo) and Claude (Calvani) –– are completely upended by the news.
“It feels lived-in,” Carell says of the show. “And I attribute that to the writing and the casting of it, too. It feels like these people have existed in each other’s lives for a long time. There’s a code, there’s an unspoken relationship that entwines all of them, and they speak the same language to each other. There’s a shorthand, and it’s funny.”
Tina Fey as Kate, Will Forte as Jack, and Steve Carell as Nick in The Four Seasons.
This update of the rom-com classic stars Fey, Carell, Domingo (Rustin, The Madness), Forte (Bodkin), Kenney-Silver (Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp), Calvani (High Tide), and Henningsen (Girls5Eva). Read more about the ensemble here on Tudum.
“I don’t know if it’s a mix of magic and luck or if they’re just amazing at what they do, but the cast is perfect,” Calvani said.
One of the highlights of The Four Seasons is that the characters are always on vacation — and with each change of the seasons comes a new, enviable backdrop. For Episodes 1 and 2, during a not-so-relaxing trip to Nick and Anne’s house, the group filmed across various upstate New York locations, including Cold Spring, Newburgh, and Fishkill. Episodes 3 and 4, when the group reluctantly vacations at an eco resort chosen by Ginny, was filmed in Puerto Rico. When the crew descends on their alma mater for parents weekend in Episodes 5 and 6, the series filmed at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and then stuck around upstate for the final two winter episodes. “New York is a beautiful and magical state,” says Fey — as well as a flexible one. “It’s a really, really beautiful place to get these four seasons.”
Yes! Click through the gallery below to see snaps of these all-weather friends. “They really pulled together a lot of different energies, people who want to have a good time,” Domingo said.
If The Four Seasons seems familiar, that’s because it’s inspired by the 1981 Alda film, of which Fey has been a fan since she was 10 years old. In fact, the film kept surfacing when Wigfield, Fey, and Fisher started collaborating. “She loved how cozy and fun the original film was. And she kept saying, ‘I want it to be like The Four Seasons,’ ” says Fisher. “Finally we were like, ‘Should we just watch The Four Seasons?’ We did, and then we were like, ‘Oh, we should just do that movie.’ ”
Like the new series, Alda’s film presents a relatable depiction of three couples, at times aspirational, at other times more challenging, but always with a sense of humor.
There are a few more specific callbacks to the film Fey’s character delivers a line spoken in the film by comedy legend Carol Burnett: “You’re married to a middle-aged woman with dry skin.” The costume team also nods to the original with many of the clothing choices. When we first meet Ginny, played by Henningsen in the series, she’s wearing a white bathing suit reminiscent of the one sported by Bess Armstrong in the equivalent film role. And, of course, both versions of The Four Seasons find their ensemble casts launching into the water from their boats.
It was important to Fey that Alda encouraged the series adaptation. “Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to be able to tell Alan Alda in person how much I love the movie, and also Carol Burnett,” says Fey. “They both were kind of like, ‘That’s weird because you were 10. This movie wasn’t really intended for you.’ ” When Fey acquired the rights, she got in touch with Alda. “Alan Alda was very generous in giving us his blessing early on to develop this,” she says. “I think he was excited that it was coming back to life. It was obviously a project that was near and dear to him.”
The writer-director also signed on to produce the series — and made a brief but memorable cameo in Episode 2. “We really did want Alan to do a cameo in the show. Thankfully, he was around and was into it,” Fey says. “He plays the character of Anne’s father who flies in for this spontaneous vow renewal ceremony that she has planned. Colman Domingo, Alan, and I have a little scene where his character shares his advice on a long and successful marriage. He’s fantastic. His timing is as incredible as it ever was. He looks so handsome.”
The Four Seasons team also had some visual guidance from the Alda family: “Arlene [Alda, Alan’s wife] was the set photographer for the original film, and she made a sort of coffee table book about the process of making the original film that we used as a template of how to shoot the four different seasons in three months,” says Fey. This book became part of the upstate New York set, alongside a photo of Alda and Burnett perched on the credenza in Anne and Nick’s living room.
Fey absorbed Alda’s wisdom in real time, on set with the legend and his wife. “It was so sweet, we shot his coverage and then he came off the set and his wife Arlene was like, ‘You were wonderful. You looked so handsome, it was wonderful to see you.’ And we all were like, ‘Oh God, we should speak to each other that way.’ We should all speak to our spouses as lovingly and kindly as Arlene and Alan,” says Fey. “Alan and Arlene are just the loveliest, most in love couple. They are absolute goals — as people no longer say, or as people said five years ago.”
The comedy dream team of Fey, Fisher, and Wigfield first worked together on the final season of 30 Rock. Each have subsequently launched other hit series — Fey’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt ran for four seasons followed by an interactive movie, while Season 3 of Girls5eva (created by Meredith Scardino and produced by Fey) debuted on Netflix in March 2024; Fisher’s Never Have I Ever ended last year after four seasons on Netflix; and Wigfield’s Great News and Saved By the Bell reboot both ran for multiple seasons.
“Tracey, Lang, and I have talked about the show being a love letter to long-term relationships, both platonic and romantic,” Fey said, “because your life is ideally more than just the person you’re married to. Sometimes when you are struggling with something with just your spouse, you need a group of friends to bring humor to it. Those friendships really help marriages, I think. Having a person who just fulfills a part of you that your spouse can’t quite [fulfill] is very important.”
The Four Seasons is executive produced by Fey, Fisher, Wigfield, David Miner, Eric Gurian, and Jeff Richmond. Alda and Marissa Bregman will produce.
Like their onscreen counterparts, The Four Seasons actors go way back. Fey and Carell worked together on Date Night, and both passed through famed improve troupe Second City, though their tenures didn’t overlap. Fey and Forte teamed up on 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live for years. Fey cast Henningsen asCady Heron in the original 2017 cast of the Mean Girls musical, with the two resuming their collaboration in 2021 when Henningsen joined Girls5Eva.
Watch the series now on Netflix.
