Interview: ‘The Four Seasons’ Executive Producers Discuss the Netflix Dramedy Series

In Netflix’s new series The Four Seasons, decades-long friendships between three married couples are tested when one couple divorces, complicating their tradition of quarterly weekend getaways. The eight-part series, which stars Tina Fey, Steve Carell, Colman Domingo, Will Forte, Marco Calvani, Kerri Kenney-Silver, and Erika Henningsen, is an adaption of the 1981 film of the same name, which was written and directed by Alan Alda, and starred Alda, Carol Burnett, Len Cariou, Sandy Dennis, Rita Moreno, Jack Weston, and Bess Armstrong.

The updated series was created by Fey, Lang Fisher, and Tracey Wigfield. Fisher and Wigfield began their careers as writers on Fey’s 30 Rock, with Fisher moving on to writer and producer on projects such as The Mindy Project, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Never Have I Ever, and Wigfield acting as writer and producer on series such as The Mindy Project, Great News, and the Saved by the Bell reboot.

We spoke with Fisher and Wigfield about how the series was developed, adapting a film into a series, balancing the tone of the series, and collaborating with Tina Fey.

First of all, congratulations on the series. I thought it was fantastic.

Oh, thank you.

Award Radar: Can you talk a little bit about how the series was developed? Why adapt a 44-year-old film?

Tracey Wigfield: Wow, great question, Jeff. You know, Lang and I were actually new to the film. Tina had loved this movie since she was a kid. Alan Alda and Carol Burnett, two comedy legends together, being married. It was really cozy. And I think when she was a kid, it was kind of a cool look into like, “Ooh, this is what it’s like to be an adult.” And Tina and Lang and I had been wanting to do a show that was a little different than the shows we had made in the past. Still a comedy, but something that was more grounded, human scale, and something that felt like that movie. Something that felt kind of cozy and dealt with themes of long relationships and marriage.

Tina kept referencing the movie, and Lang and I were like, “Oh, we should watch this movie.” I know Tina had wanted to do a version of this for a long time, and I think we all kind of felt like, “Oh, this is exactly what we should do. This lends itself so perfectly. The structure’s really cool.” You get to see these three couples over the course of the year in four different locations. So, there’s a travel element to it. The movie is so special, and it felt like a great time to do a new version.

Award Radar: Did you find there was a freedom in expanding a 97-minute film into essentially four hours, or was it a challenge?

Lang Fisher: The film itself is fairly loose in terms of plot and stuff. It’s more of just taking in this friend group and seeing them throughout the year. So, I think we wanted to honor the film in the parts of it that were particularly Tina’s favorite parts. So, we do have some real nods back to the original movie. There are some really small, little moments, like when Jack and Kate overhear Nick and his new girlfriend having sex next door and they start laughing. That scene is in the original movie. And there’s even a really small scene that Tina just loved where they’re all scooping ice out of an ice machine after the ultimate Frisbee game that we almost just like took word for word from the movie. So, we tried to make sure that we honored those moments.

But because we needed to fill eight episodes, we did need to like beef it up and add more plot. And that was really fun. There was freedom in that. I think the biggest move we made was the character of Anne in the movie kind of disappears a little bit after spring. You just kind of don’t see her as much after that. So, we really expanded Anne’s character arc. And Kerri Kenney-Silver played it so beautifully. It was nice to see her go all the way through all the seasons. So, we had fun sort of deciding how to flesh out those different plot lines and those characters.

Award Radar: There were a lot of things that you kept; obviously the characters and a lot of the general formatting of the original film is still intact, but you did change a lot. Was there anything else beyond that in the decision-making process?

Tracey Wigfield: Well, I think our litmus test for what was important to keep really came down to Tina and what were moments that she was a fan of the film. So, for fans of the film, they’ll want to see these certain things.

But just because we were new to the movie and liked the movie, we wanted the show to really have an entry point, whether you had ever heard of the movie or not. It’s a TV show versus a movie. So, you just have more time to fill, and there needs to be more plot, more set pieces, just more. I think it would feel pretty slight if we kept it so close to the original, as much as we all love the original.

Lang Fisher: And it’s a Netflix show, so you want to have a driving story from episode to episode, cliffhangers and that sort of thing. So yeah, I think we wanted to make sure that that structure lent itself to people wanting to keep tuning in.

Award Radar: I’m curious if you incorporated any of your own experiences into the story.

Tracey Wigfield: I think we did. You know, our writer’s room was so great. It was pretty small, and it was made up of a lot of all people we’ve all worked with before. A lot of writers from 30 Rock. And a lot of them were people that we have been friends with for like 15 years, and people who had been married for a really long time.

So, most of our room, more than any comedy room I’ve been in before, was telling stories and talking about, “The thing my husband does that drives me crazy,” or whatever. Or, when I got a divorce, this was the one weird thing that kept coming up for me. I see a lot of stuff in the show from my own marriage, from my own friendships. And I bet that’s true for Lang, for Tina, for all the writers.

Award Radar: The series balances comedy and drama pretty nicely. I’m curious if you can talk about maintaining that tone in the writing process.

Lang Fisher: Well, the tone I think is kind of a departure from a lot of the things we’ve made in the past, which have been pretty ‘many jokes a minute’ network comedies that are pretty joke dense. And I think when we set out to let it breathe more and to have sort of more of a grounded feel.

We all kind of ran a lot of different jokes by each other to make sure that felt like it existed in the world, and that it wasn’t a sort of joke that would be better on 30 Rock or something. Things that felt very funny, but observational and happened in real life.

Tracey Wigfield: We had to police ourselves because also you could feel yourself getting pulled there, where it’s like if the room’s laughing at something a little too much and it’s a guy who’s not in our cast, like a day player running in and saying something nuts at the end of the scene, it’s like, “That’s not real life and that doesn’t belong in our show as much as we all wish it could.” So, we had to be on top of it.

Award Radar: I imagine that had to be extra challenging when you’ve got a cast with such rich comedy backgrounds.

Oh yeah.

Award Radar: Speaking of the cast, you’ve got some pretty heavy hitters here. Can you talk about the casting process a little bit?

Lang Fisher: First of all, we are blown away and so excited and proud of this cast and just thrilled that they wanted to work with us. One thing that’s so great about the original film is you’re like, “Oh, all my favorite people from other things are now in this one friend group. You’ve got Carol Burnett married to Alan Alda. Yes!” And so, we wanted people to feel that way when they saw our cast. Tina Fey married to Will Forte. Yes. Steve Carell too, and Coleman Domingo and Kerri.  We wanted that feeling when people see the trailer to be like, “Oh gosh, I gotta see this show because those are all my favorite people.”

We went out to Steve first, and when he said yes, we said, “Oh my gosh. This is gonna be a real show. Then we went out to Coleman second and we were like, “We’ll never get him. He is an Oscar nominee. He’s got better things to do at this time.” But I think he was really craving the chance to do some comedy because he’s been doing some pretty heavy roles. And he was like, “I’m in.” And we were like, “Oh my God, this is gonna be real. This is gonna happen.”

Then we got so lucky with the rest of our cast too because they’re just not only wonderful actors, but the entire cast are wonderful people. And the set was so supportive. Everyone. It was just a true ensemble. Everyone letting everyone have their moment, letting everyone shine. It did, by the end, feel like a group of friends going on vacation together, because when we weren’t rolling, everyone was like, “Shall we all go out to dinner?” It was just so nice.

Award Radar: Given the premise of the series, the locations are pretty crucial. I’d say they’re almost another character in the series. Can you talk about the filming locations and what was the production like?

Tracey Wigfield: Sure. So, we filmed in the Hudson Valley. We filmed in spring, and we filmed most of our seasons there. For summer at the very end, we filmed in Puerto Rico as Puerto Rico. We filmed that season last only because we were trying to avoid hurricane season. So, that we shot in December. But the rest of the seasons were all basically filmed around the Hudson Valley. We did some ski pickups to get actual snow in. Where was that?

Lang Fisher: That was still in New York State.

Tracey Wigfield: But it was like an hour north of Mount Peter. We were all in the Hudson Valley shooting in the fall from September to November. You know, it’s about the four seasons. You have to be on the East Coast to really get the great colors in fall and spring. We had such incredible folks working for us. Our production designer, Sharon Seymour, did such beautiful work. It was a lot of work to make grass that wasn’t green, green, and to make trees that were green look like they had snow on them. It was VFX too, but it was just a lot of work behind the scenes.

It was a great idea when we were coming up with it. And then when we were like, “Oh wait, how do we actually produce it?” It seemed a lot more complicated. But it all worked because we had a really talented crew.

Award Radar: How would you say this experience was different from your previous collaborations with Tina? Or was it not any different?

Tracey Wigfield: No, it was different. I started out as a writer’s assistant on 30 Rock when I was 24. So, that’s obviously when I first met her. And then I became a writer, and Lang was a writer on 30 Rock as well. When I met Tina, I looked up to her so much already. She’s the nicest person, so you can’t be terrified of her, but I just wanted to impress her so much. Then after 30 Rock ended, Tina was a producer on my NBC show, Great News. And that felt like, “Okay, I’m a little bit more of an adult now.”  Still, when she has a note, we do it. She was so helpful, such a helpful mentor in teaching me how to run a show and do all these other parts of show running that I hadn’t done before. But this was the first time that we had truly done something collaborative with her, and it was great. She’s really one of the best people I’ve ever worked with at collaboration and such a good listener. She has no ego. She pitches ideas that are always amazing and throws them away in a second if somebody else’s idea works better. She really is a lovely person to create with.

Award Radar: You mentioned there were a handful of writers on the project. What was the writing process like?

Lang Fisher: Initially Tracy, Tina and I kind of created a roadmap for the season of the big tentpoles of things that we wanted to happen. What are the locations? What are the events? What are the big story turns? And then once the writer’s room came in, then we started to just break the episodes. So, we’re mostly writing together. Usually, we will create outlines together and then send someone off to write the first draft of an episode, but then they bring it back to the room. And so, it’s really collaborative. We’re always sort of working together. Everyone kind of has their hand in every episode.

Award Radar: What was your biggest takeaway from the project, as far as how relationships are explored?

Lang Fisher: I think what the show to me is having people in your life who’ve known you for as long as they have, who are witnesses to your life, gives your life like meaning. It makes you so appreciative of how precious these friendships and relationships are. And I think the show is about marriage, but it’s about the fact that your life is bigger than just your marriage. You need kind of a core group to keep you in check and remind you of who you are. It’s made me really appreciate all of the relationships in my life and be grateful for them.

Tracey Wigfield: I hope people take away that it’s a story about middle age that is not a depressing story. That is not about divorce and fighting. I mean, it is about divorce, but it’s not about ‘Now this is the slow march to the grave’ It’s about this time in your life that you feel like, “Oh, well, all the choices are made. It’s all settled.” But there’s so, there’s so much excitement and wonder and weirdness that is still about to happen to you.

Award Radar: Well, as a married middle-aged person myself, I found it quite relatable.

Tracey Wigfield: Good.

Lang Fisher: Good. We hope so.

Award Radar: Thank you again for taking the time and congratulations again. Good luck.

Lang Fisher: Thank you so much.

You can watch our full interview with Lang Fisher and Tracey Wigfield below.

The Four Seasons streams on Netflix on May 1, 2025.