Tina Fey reimagines Alan Alda's The Four Seasons (but is it good?)

There’s a sequence in Alan Alda’s 1981 movie The Four Seasons in which all of the main characters converge on a classic Connecticut college for a parents' weekend and end up playing a friendly game of soccer.

Alda uses the game to highlight the competitiveness of the two primary players. The set piece is the same in Tina Fey’s new interpretation – now playing on Netflix – but the sport has changed. Now they are all playing ultimate frisbee.

This is just one of the many ways Fey and her co-creators – Lang Fisher and Tracey Wigfield – have managed to remain faithful to Alda’s original while expanding the scope.

With a writer like Tina Fey in charge, how could Four Seasons go wrong?

For instance, whereas the soccer scene in the original film primarily results in a showdown between the two alpha males in the group – Jack (Alda) and Nick (Len Cariou) – Fey, who wrote this particular episode, also uses it to explore the dynamic between two of the film’s less developed characters – Ginny (Erika Henningsen) and Lila (Julia Lester).

This is not a knock on Alda’s original, which launched a decade in which the MASH star wrote and directed four feature films and briefly laid claim to a status as something of a cross between Ingmar Bergman and Woody Allen. Fey and company had twice as much screen time to develop the same story. It makes sense that the creators could take advantage of that extra time.

The new Four Seasons maintains the same storyline and blend of comedy and drama. It examines the same themes. The basic premise, which is set out in the first episode of the miniseries, is that three married couples have been vacationing together four times a year for some time.

As such, they have become very close and have also grown to love and hate certain parts of the rather intrusive relationship.

In the first episode, Nick – now being played by Steve Carell – announces to his friends Jack (Will Forte) and Danny (Colman Domingo) that he is unhappy in his marriage to his wife Anne (Kerri Kenney-Silver), and intends to ask her for a divorce. This will send shock waves through the close-knit group as everyone begins choosing sides.

The Four Seasons follows its characters through the subsequent three vacations and traces how they begin to question their own relationships. Nick begins bringing his new partner, Ginny, along, and her mere presence becomes a match to the gasoline that runs through each character’s psyche.

Ginny is much younger than Anne, and her manner of interacting with Nick is very different as well. The other characters work through jealousy, anger, and condescension in roughly equal measure, with results that are at times heartbreaking and at times hilarious. Sometimes, those results manage to be both.

The movie ran two hours, and the miniseries is comprised of eight half-hour episodes. That means that, for the most part, each pair of episodes covers one of the four vacations. It also means that the writers have twice as much time to explore their characters.

The most obvious place this shows up is in the material devoted to each character. The original film was an ensemble, but Jack and Kate (Alda and Carol Burnett) were its true center. They got almost all of the most intimate scenes.

Their counterparts in the new series – now played by Fey and Forte – still are slightly elevated. But everyone gets their share of moments. That applies to Danny and Claude – now reimagined as a gay couple played by Domingo and Marco Calvani. In the film, they were played by Jack Weston and Rita Moreno. They get a far more developed storyline in the miniseries.

Henningsen’s Ginny is more nuanced than Bess Armstrong’s original fawning younger woman. She inserts herself into the events much more authoritatively, which also serves the drama better.

And whereas Sandy Dennis’ abandoned Anne barely registers after the opening sequence, Kinney-Silver remains a constant presence. Her evolution may be the single most significant addition to this remake.

The other most significant change comes from Jack's character. Alda’s original Jack was an insufferable control freak masquerading as a caring friend. It made for some excellent comedy and wonderful moments with Burnett, but grew overbearing by the end.

Fey has largely shifted the characters of Jack and Kate, with Kate now being the cruelly judgmental and Jack staying largely innocent. However, this version of Kate is not as self-righteous as the original Jack.

The other specific changes are less significant. The couples in the original were well off; these couples are downright rich. The new series eschews the boat setting for the second vacation. The new setting does create some pretty good humor, but it also results in a fairly heavy-handed mini-climax.

The character of Lila (Lisa in the original) is built up very skillfully, and then her challenge is resolved a touch too easily.

Those are minor quibbles. Fans of the original film will not mind any of that. They may be less satisfied with the new final act, which constitutes the most significant single change from the movie. I think it is actually a better ending.

Fey and her co-creators have assembled an excellent cast. Domingo is always a standout, and his Danny dominates the screen. The others all hold their own. There are no weak links.

As in the original, The Four Seasons is primarily concerned with exploring couples in their late-middle years, when the kids have begun their own lives and now two partners are left to wonder about their choices and the ones still to come. Both Alan Alda and Tina Fey recognize the dramatic imperative to have action and visceral excitement.

But they are at their best when characters – either in pairs or in larger groups – talk through their lives' tragedies and joys. There is enough mature drama to make you think and enough silly comedy to make you smile.

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