Few producer writers have a style of house as distinct as that of Tina Fey – to the point that the signature of the creator of “30 rock” extends to an entire universe of shows under his umbrella. Fey did not have direct control of Showrunner on “Mr. Mayor “,” Great News “,” Girls5eva “or the Revival of Peacock of” Saved by the Bell “, but all these series have a distinct family resemblance. These are absurd comedies, effectively structured and joke, often covered with a partition of the composer’s clarinet Jeff Richmond, who is also Fey’s husband. Richmond is only one of the many names that reproduce in Fey projects, a coherent list which guarantees both shared DNA and cultivates experienced talents over time.
Fey’s latest effort, the Netflix mini-series “The Four Seasons”, partially extends this MO. Fey co-created the show with the alumni of “30 rock” Tracey Wigfield, who continued his throws “Great News” and “Saved by the Bell”, and Lang Fisher, who returns to Feyworld after having co-created the Hit at the age of age “I never had”. (The other pillars David Miner and Eric Gurian are also executive products.) Fey even plays a grumpy and judicious woman, scented in lemon, kissing her average age, alongside the partners of the Steve Carell screen (“Date Night”) and Will Forte (Paul l’Astnammé!).
But “The Four Seasons” also marks a clear break of almost two decades of tradition. On the one hand, it is an adaptation in a CV otherwise marked by original ideas, assuming the premise inspired by the Vivaldi of the 1981 film written and directed by Alan Alda, which obtains both a cameo and a producer credit in this update. (“Saved by the Bell” was technically a restart, although in practice, it looked more like a total personality transplant which took up some characters.) The Fey’s repertoire company develops to include the new arrivals Colman Domingo, Marco Calvani and Kerri Kenney-Silver. And above all, the tone is decidedly associated with Dramedic, exchanging a rapid rhythm of punchlines for a more melancholy version of long -term marriage. “The Four Seasons” is ultimately able to provide clever information on adult relationships, but also finds it difficult to settle in this new clumsy pace. The Fey Brain Trust works visibly to extend its repertoire – an effort which, inevitably, comes with growing pain.
“The Four Seasons” traces a year in the life of three couples, divided into four group trips which each obtain their own block of two episodes. When Nick (Carell) announces his intention to leave Anne (Kenney-Silver) on the eve of their 25th wedding anniversary, he folds both Jack (Forte) and Kate (Fey), who tend to assert the state of their own union by behaving on others, as well as Danny (Domingo) and Claude Coldy), including opposite doctors (Clade Lance, Danny Cold), including Dotames Opposite (key The problems lead the interior designer to get burst at work. The training effect of Nick’s actions takes place during a weekend in a country house (spring), an unhappy stay in an eco-story (summer), a family weekend in a college of liberal arts (autumn) and, finally, ski holidays (winter). Lotus ”, each getaway acts as a pressure cooker.
While Richmond is still credited with the music of the series, the sound landscape of “The Four Seasons” is naturally dominated by the emblematic classical compositions which give the show its name. Between the gusts of strings, there is mainly silence – and nothing will make you realize how important the sound is for the Fey School of Humor as its absence. Visually, “The Four Seasons” has the flat and slightly artificial appearance of a sitcom. (Three seasons are respectively led by Fisher, the lighting of comedy Oz Rodriguez and the married duo Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman; Richmond and Domingo Split Tases for the fall.) Aurally, The Show Maroons Sight Gags as a Booze Pedal bus on the way this world has been set up.
The questions raised by Nick’s decision, after all, are those daily. Is it a coward for having bail out the work of life engagement, or courageous to trace a new path? Are his friends horrified by this forty-quarantine crisis, at the fancy sports car and a younger girlfriend, or jealous of Nick’s freedom? The split is also accompanied by more practical problems, such as the way the group should maintain separate links with Nick and Anne now that the pillars of the couples travel are no longer a couple.
The representation of the new flame of Nick Ginny (Erika Henningsen) is nicer than that of literal children in the delicious “SNL” “SNL” of Fey “meet your second wife”, but only. Before it is completed in one person in its own right, Ginny is a police of easy cracks with regard to the attendance of humans and beach yoga. Here, once again, the confused tone is wreaking havoc: it is good for a purely comical character to be a closely defined archetype, as Airhead assistant on “30 rock”, but in a more serious context, the same approach may be cruel.
“The Four Seasons” is more duly nuanced with regard to the other dynamics of the group. The most rewarding is the platonic link between Danny and Kate, two jaded cynics whose report experienced in the nomine of Oscar Domingo adds to this crew of actors. The opening of Danny and Claude’s wedding is also presented to do in the middle, if it is clearly separated, from the fight against the fidelity of their friends. (The presence of an interracial queer couple is one of the most major changes in the film, but which is widely authorized to speak of itself.) The problems of Jack and Kate are more subtle and slow to emerge than the other pairs ”; With quick episodes and half an hour, this sometimes manifests in their speckled tensions rather than shown. “Everyone gets the high -end version of your personality,” sighs Kate from her plastic spouse. It is a large line, but with so many other relationships sharing the spotlights, it is the main way that we learn about their particular misfortunes.
Just as “The Four Seasons” begins to settle and find its way, Fey, Wigfield and Fisher launch a morbid torsion that the spectacle is too unstable to support without completing under its weight. From “scenes of a wedding”, television has proven to be an ideal way to put monogamy under the microscope; Its length offers space to recreate the feeling of intimate company. However, “The Four Seasons” cannot resist exploding his art, if he commits, the issues – if not with jokes, then with a destabilizing turn. Fey & Co. are not yet as capable of a prolonged character study as in pure comedy. Again, they did not have so much practice.
The eight episodes of “The Four Seasons” are now in trouble on Netflix.
