NOW ENTERTAINMENT April 2700 - May 2025 Month - 00,3,2023
Your Weekly TV Entertainment Brought To You By Olean Times Herald & The Bradford Era
Netflix’s newest comedy series “The Four Seasons,” about a close-knit group of six friends who travel together seasonally, premieres Thursday, May 1. Marco Calvani, Colman Domingo, Tina Fey and Will Forte in “The Four Seasons”
Cover Story ‘Seasons’ of love: Fey, Carell among vacationing friends in ‘The Four Seasons’ By Dana Simpson The intricacies of adult friendships have long fascinated the world of social studies due, in large part, to the levels of engagement and energy required to maintain a happy, successful relationship. According to Jeffrey A. Hall, a University of Kansas communications studies professor and author of the 2019 article “How many hours does it take to make a friend?” in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, “although [a] good friendship can develop after spending 120–160 [hours] together over three weeks, 200+ [hours] is likely needed over six weeks for friends to become good/best friends.” Despite this, Americans, on average, typically “only spend about 41 [minutes] a day socializing.” Needless to say, maintaining an existing adult friendship can be just as difficult
when the pressures and responsibilities of daily life get in the way — a fact that presents itself, amid other realistic complications, in Netflix’s new buddy comedy series “The Four Seasons,” premiering Thursday, May 1, on the popular streaming service. “The Four Seasons” follows a group of three couples who, amid all of life’s complications and curveballs, resolve to take a trip together each season of the year. But when one couple files for divorce, tensions rise within the friend group, and all their plans seem to fall by the wayside. The series, comprised of eight episodes, takes heavy inspiration from the 1981 Alan Alda (“M*A*S*H”) written and directed film of the same name starring Carol Burnett (“The Carol Burnett Show”), Rita Moreno (“West Side Story,” 1961), Len Cariou (“Blue Bloods”), Jack Weston (“Wait Until Dark,”
1967), Sandy Dennis (“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” 1966) and Alda himself. The 1980s comedy-drama was relatively well received upon its release, with New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin praising the comfort of the film by writing that “even the occasional confrontations ... have a soothing air.” “No one in ‘The Four Seasons’ ever goes to bed angry,” Maslin continued in her 1981 article, adding, “and there’s no particular reason to want them to.” And while the 2025 “Four Seasons” series manages to update the couples’ issues, interests and relationships with one another in a believable way across significantly more airtime, series star and co-creator Tina Fey (“Saturday Night Live”) says she and fellow creators Lang Fisher (“Never Have I Ever”) and Tracey Wigfield (“The Mindy Project”) have tried to maintain the same level of
comfort in the reimagining as was provided by its source material. “I hope audiences feel like they are inside a big sweater with us, and also having a dinner party with us,” Fey told Tudum ahead of the series release. “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.” “The Four Seasons” stars Colman Domingo (“Fear the Walking Dead”) as Danny, Will Forte (“The Last Man on Earth”) as Jack, Kerri Kenney-Silver (“Reno 911!”) as Anne, Marco Calvani (“Borgia”) as Claude and Fey as Kate, with her former “Date Night” (2010) co-star Steve Carell as Nick — a “perfect” cast, according to Calvani, who attributes their connection either to industry-based talent or “a mix of magic and luck” (per Tudum).