The Four Seasons, the 1981 movie written and directed by Alan Alda, is now available to watch on Netflix. The feel-good film, which follows three middle-aged couples who vacation together every season, inspired Tina Fey’s new series of the same name, which launched on May 1.
Read on to learn more about the series, and the classic movie that inspired it.
When co-creators Fey, Lang Fisher (Never Have I Ever), and Tracey Wigfield (30 Rock) set out to collaborate on a new project together, they kept coming back to Alda’s The Four Seasons. “Tina loved how cozy and fun the original film was, and she kept saying, ‘I want it to be like The Four Seasons. I love that movie,’ ” says Fisher of their initial brainstorming. “Finally we were like, ‘Should we just watch The Four Seasons?’ And we did, and then we were like, ‘Oh, we should just do that movie.’ ”
Len Cariou, Jack Weston, Alan Alda, Rita Moreno in the 1981 film The Four Seasons
Marco Calvani as Claude, Colman Domingo as Danny, Tina Fey as Kate, and Will Forte as Jack in the 2025 series The Four Seasons
“I was a huge fan of the original film, even though I was only 10 when the movie came out,” says Fey of what kept her coming back to the ’80s flick. “I always just thought, ‘Oh, that’s what grown-up life is like.’ It just felt very cozy and aspirational, and I’ve always had affection for the movie.”
Fey, Fisher, and Wigfield got Alda’s blessing before developing the series, which maintains the original’s structure and dedicates two episodes to each season. “I think he was excited that it was coming back to life. It was obviously a project that was near and dear to him,” says Fey. “We did show Alan the first couple scripts — and his lovely wife, Arlene. Arlene was the set photographer for the original film, and she made a sort of coffee table book about the process of making the original that we used as a template.”
Alda is indeed glad his film is getting a second life. It was recently screened at the Paris Theater in New York, after which he gave an impromptu heartfelt toast to Fey and the series. Watch below.
Chronicling the upscale neuroses of three middle-aged couples, this wry comedy of manners stars Alda, Carol Burnett, Sandy Dennis, Len Cariou, Jack Weston and Rita Moreno. The longtime friends take vacations together every season until one of the men leaves his spouse for a much younger woman (Bess Armstrong), tilting the group dynamics and putting their interrelationships to the test.
The original The Four Seasons stars Alda, Burnett, and Moreno among other fan-favorite household names of the day. “I always loved it, because it was seeing people that I knew from other comedies that I loved being friends and being married couples,” says Fey. “It was just a real dream come true to feel like you were hanging out with that cast.”
Like the film, the new lineup assembles a who’s who of comedy geniuses, many of whom had worked together previously, which lends the series a familiar, convivial feel. Joining Fey on-screen are Will Forte (MacGruber, Bodkin), Steve Carell (The Office, Space Force), Kerri Kenney-Silver (Reno 911!), Colman Domingo (Sing Sing, Rustin), Marco Calvani (High Tide), and Erika Henningsen (Girls5eva).
Both are available to stream now.
