The Tina Fey Miniseries Taking Over Netflix Is Perfect For The White Lotus Fans

If you're expecting the fast-paced outright absurdity of "30 Rock" or "Girls5Eva" when you queue up Tina Fey's new Netflix series "The Four Seasons," you might be caught off guard. But while this project is a bit different from a lot of Fey's small-screen work, it's still yet another worthy effort from the multi-talented "Saturday Night Live" veteran. Based on Alan Alda's 1981 movie "The Four Seasons," which was written, directed, and led by Alda alongside Carol Burnett, Rita Moreno, and Len Cariou, this Netflix miniseries of the same name reimagines the story for modern times. Fey, who created the show with her longtime collaborators Lang Fisher and Tracey Wigfield, stars as Kate, who's married to Jack (Will Forte), and every "season," they vacation with their friends Danny (Colman Domingo), Danny's husband Claude (Marco Calvani), Nick (Steve Carell), and his wife Anne (Kerri Kenney-Silver). According to FlixPatrol, the Netflix original is crushing the streamer's charts, opening at number one and staying there for multiple days since.

During their first on-screen trip (the miniseries spends two episodes on each season of the year) in the spring, Nick tells Danny and Jack that he's not happy in his marriage to Anne and is planning on leaving her ... all while Anne, who has no idea, is planning a vow renewal for the couple. By summer, Danny has a new girlfriend — the much younger Ginny (played by Erika Henningsen, who appeared in Fey's Broadway adaptation of "Mean Girls"), who doesn't really fit in with the group. Anne is left on the outskirts, and the two remaining couples have problems of their own.

Sure, there's a lot less murder in "The Four Seasons" than there is in "The White Lotus" — in fact, there's no murder at all — but it does fall into the same vein if you're looking for a new bingeable show about well-off people who can't escape their problems, even on vacation. So what do critics think of "The Four Seasons"?

"Welcoming as a lakeside vista and occasionally just as placid, The Four Seasons isn't as breezily funny as creator Tina Fey's best work but often just as witty and wise," the Rotten Tomatoes consensus for Fey's series reads, awarding the series a solid 77% rating. Individual critics were slightly more mixed on "The Four Seasons," but overall, it seems like people just ... really like Fey. (As they should! She's very good at her job!)

NPR's Eric Deggans, for one, called the series "both a touching tribute and knowing update — a meditation on the value of grown-up relationships that is a wonderful antidote to the isolated age we live in." Lili Loofbourow at the Washington Post seemed to agree, writing, "The result is a warmhearted but uneven TV rom-com that feels like the throwback it is." Over at Slate, Sam Adams expressed a similar sentiment, saying, "It makes good use of its expanded scope, broadening our understanding of each character so no one feels shoved aside," and in her Vulture review, Jen Chaney agreed: "It's about wondering if there's still something more in life that you're missing, while learning to be grateful for the long, complicated relationships you already have."

Not all critics loved it, though. Writing for the New York Times, Margaret Lyons mused, "It's a casual acquaintance — perfectly fine for an afternoon, but shallower and more disposable than the real deal." The Chicago Tribune's Nina Metz was on the same page: "Ultimately, it's not funny, which is such a strange and disappointing contrast to the source material." I think the most accurate representation of reviews, though, probably came from Variety's Alison Herman, who concluded, "'The Four Seasons' is ultimately able to deliver some astute insights into adult relationships, but also struggles to settle into this awkward new rhythm."

So what inspired Tina Fey to adapt the 1981 film "The Four Seasons" for Netflix? Fey, Lang Fisher, and Tracey Wigfield, the latter two of whom worked alongside Fey as writers on "30 Rock," which came to a close in 2013, sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to talk about what it was like to make the series, and apparently, Fey, who loved the movie as a kid, has been trying to make this happen for quite some time.

"I was chasing it for a long time, more than five years," Fey said. "I'd spoken to Alan [Alda] early on, got his blessing to pursue it and I think Universal thought they had the rights and then we all realized ... we didn't. So, it was a process of getting the right people to sign off."

"We'd been talking about a show the three of us could do together, and Tina had mentioned the movie a couple of times," Fisher added. "Finally, we were like, 'OK, we'll watch the movie!' Tracey and I were instantly like, 'This is a great premise for a show.'" (The concept of "The Four Seasons" does work really well as a miniseries, particularly when each of the titular four seasons gets the luxury of two episodes.) As for Wigfield, she felt optimistic when she realized Fey would work behind and in front of the camera for the series. "Knowing Tina would star in this is what excited me because it felt tonally different than anything we'd done before. It's grounded, it gets into deeper emotional stuff. It's adult, more true to us, because Lang and I were coming off of high school shows," Wigfield said; she worked on Netflix's "Saved By the Bell" reboot, and Fisher was a co-creator of the great "Never Have I Ever."

Beyond that, Fey said that the softer, gentler approach of both the overall show and the way they shot it was a huge draw for her: "The appeal for me is that, the older you get, the more you think about the shooting experience. This is just us in comfortable places having a nice time." Fisher continued that thought, saying, "Right now, people are craving gentleness, and I think that you get that here. Because the world is full of terrors." Naturally, Fey had to throw in a closing joke, quipping, "Please don't hold it against us that we had a nice time making this."

So will "The Four Seasons" continue past season 1? It hasn't been renewed by Netflix yet, but Fisher thinks it could easily end or continue. "I feel like we saw it both ways," Fisher said. "It could be a great limited series, but we have ideas if it goes on. It's a question of whether we can get the whole cast back and we want to see what these guys would do next. I don't think we would do it ever as an anthology. I think you want to see these particular characters."

"The Four Seasons" is streaming on Netflix now.