Tina Fey. Steve Carrell. Will Forte. Two-time Oscar-nominee Colman Domingo.
When actors of that caliber get tother, you expect greatness. You expect to be doubled over in laughter as deep characters engage in high jinks and tomfoolery, but in a thoughtful way. Particularly when you hear Fey’s name, creator and star of “30 Rock,” “Mean Girls” and “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.” Which is why the writer/actress’s new Netflix marriage comedy “The Four Seasons” (now streaming, ★★ out of four) is such a disappointment.
Based on the 1981 Alan Alda film, “Seasons” follows three couples on four vacations (one each season) as they deal with the difficulties of relationships large and small. Monotony, sex, divorce, parenting − it’s all wrapped up in a very picturesque package in a lakeside cabin, on a tropical beach, on an autumnal New England college campus and on a snow-capped mountain and ski lodge. The vacations may be polished and seasonally appropriate, but the relationships are distinctly messy and complicated.
Thought-provoking and relatable to anyone who has ever been in a long-term relationship, the setup seems perfect for the melodrama and conflict that makes for great relationship comedies. The original film had it all, including a series of manic tableaus brought to you by legends including Alda, Carol Burnett and Rita Moreno. But stretched out over eight half-hour episodes as a miniseries, “Seasons” feels surface-level at best, unfunny and dull at worst. (This marks the second attempt to bring the story to TV: CBS ran a series in 1984 that lasted only 13 episodes). “Seasons” is a big miss when it should have been an easy home run.
The three couples at the center each have at least one A-lister on board: Fey and Forte as dorky Kate and Jack, Carell’s smarmy Nick married to free-spirit Anne (Kerri Kenney-Silver) and judgy Danny (Domingo), with artsy and emotional Claude (Marco Calvani). At the start of the series, when the group is at Nick and Anne’s lakeside house in springtime, everything seems as if it’s coming up roses. But the cracks immediately begin to show: Nick is thinking of leaving Anne for someone more “alive”; Danny is ignoring his health problems, much to Claude’s dismay; and dark humor and sarcasm don’t fully cover up the deep fault lines in Jack and Kate’s relationship.
More: Tina Fey talks ‘The Four Seasons’ on Netflix
The couples are set up to be ostensible powder kegs of emotion and pent-up resentments, and yet the series never satisfies us by showing the explosions. Most of the major relationship milestones and potholes happen offscreen between the seasonal vacays, leaving us to find entertainment and meaning in the puny aftershocks. And while Fey’s scripts, written with co-creators Lang Fisher (“Never Have I Ever”) and Tracey Wigfield (“The Mindy Project”), have occasional funny bits, you’ll find yourselves uncomfortably silent while watching what are meant to be jokes pass across the screen. And when the series takes an occasional serious turn, you’ll just be confused. All of this plays out to the familiar tune of Antonio Vivaldi’s concerti “The Four Seasons,” in case the series wasn’t on-the-nose enough.
“Seasons” is acutely reminiscent of Apple TV+’s “Palm Royale,” last year’s period dramedy starring Kristen Wiig. Like “Seasons,” “Royale” had an A-list cast, featuring Wiig, Allison Janney, Ricky Martin, Laura Dern and Burnett, but somehow it fell decidedly flat. The actors and the looks were there, but the jokes and the depth weren’t.
A few moments in “Seasons” speak to what the show could’ve (should’ve) been. It’s fun and illuminating to watch Anne, boxed in for decades as Nick’s wife and her daughter’s mother, forge a new identity. It’s not a remotely new story − there are dozens of TV shows, books and films about the divorced woman who finds herself − but it is definitely the best told one of the bunch.
The series has four hours to say something, anything, about marriage or aging or midlife crises, but by the end the show’s point of view is not at all clear. Is having a life partner meaningful? Worthless? Somewhere in the middle?
“Seasons” is, unfortunately, as clueless as its characters.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: ‘The Four Seasons’ review: Tina Fey comedy should be better
