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Of all the comments one might hear about Tina Fey’s hugely successful career in television, film, and on Broadway, there are some things that are irrefutable – the most important of which is that with her first sitcom, 30 RockShe created a TV series. An awards juggernaut blend of perceptive, surreal and deadpan humour, as it followed the eccentric players and producers Saturday Night LiveThis soap opera-like network show may not have been for everyone (as the ratings reflect), but it touched a cultural chord and created a huge fan base strong enough to continue its run for six seasons on NBC.
after 30 Rock In 2013, Fey finds herself in a Hollywood where women — particularly funny women — have become some of the most bankable stars in town; Her contemporaries Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy have been leading the charge. Instead of competing for the spotlight, Fey has channeled her smart comedic instincts behind the camera, putting her energy to work across a number of amazing projects. She has co-created or produced seven other sitcoms and written and/or starred in multiple films. She also modified her text to I mean girls — the dark high school comedy that arguably became the definitive comedy for millennials — was adapted into a Tony-nominated musical, then written a film version of that musical from its instant classic original. Fey now has at least nine projects in development over the next few years, and she’ll be back at it Murders only in the building Later this year.
But Fey’s latest TV series — an adaptation of Alan Alda’s semi-obscure 1981 drama for Netflix — has become her new chosen home. The four seasonswhich was initially conceived as a one-off and run limited series, explores sitcom staples such as modern marriage and coupling, along with heavier themes such as life, death, grief and loss. Alda, who appeared in seasons one and two, filled out the decades-old drama with Carol Burnett, Rita Moreno and other cameos; Fey crew included SNL Pal Will Forte as her character’s husband, alongside Kerry Kinney, Marco Calvani, Erika Henningsen, and Colman Domingo.
“I like the style of the film, and that’s something we tried to maintain,” Fey explained in an interview. Hollywood Reporter Before the premiere of the show’s second season. “‘Cozy’ is the word I keep using — and everyone here probably wants to have a drink every time I say it. He brought together these comedians who were already so likable: Carol Burnett, Alan Alda, Rita Moreno. And there are all these people you already know. This is the kind of ensemble that I felt we were able to build with Will and Carrie and Steve and Coleman. To maintain that kind of joyful, relaxed viewing experience.”
For Fey and the show’s co-creators, Lang Fisher and Tracey Wigfield, writing at length for these characters — whom the showrunner has long known from when the film became a rewatched favorite — opened up the creative possibilities considerably.
“We thought if we could expand the scope of the movie, we could see more of Anne, who kind of disappears in the movie,” she added. “We can go deeper with Jenny, with all these characters, and have more time.”
Forte, sitting next to his former counterpart SNL The colleague and current fictional wife of the joint interview had a confession to make. When asked how the show and his character were drawn from Alda’s film, he answered frankly.
“Well… I didn’t see it,” Forte revealed, his face visibly red. “I know. I have two young kids, and when we were first doing it, the movie wasn’t on Netflix yet. And then I said, ‘Your priority is just the silly diapers.'” It feels disrespectful because I love Alan Alda with all my heart. I’m an ass. I should have done it already. This is the year we watch it!
The second season of the series picks up where the story left off, following the lives of three long-term couples across four vacations together over the course of one year: Kate and Jack, Nick and Anne, and Danny and Claude. By the end of the first season, their comfortable dynamic is shattered when Nick (Steve Carell) announces that he is leaving his wife, Anne, and soon takes up with a much younger woman, Jenny. This seismic shift forces everyone in the group to confront uncomfortable truths about their marriages, their aging, their friendship, and the life they thought they had built. Then Nick dies in a freak car accident.
For a show equally rooted in comedy and drama, that might seem like a hard right turn into grim territory. But for both artists, it was an opportunity for some of the most rewarding work they say the medium has to offer.
“Those very emotionally charged situations are my favorite places for comedy to come from,” Forte said. “There’s tension, but it also feels off. It’s very normal for people to try to say something that they think will lighten the mood when something very dark is happening — so it stays off, but it’s also a heightened state so that some very shocking things can come out. Which is a lot of fun.”
Faye put it somewhat more succinctly: “Well, honey, my sadness is funny.”
A character’s death — and finding a way to write it meaningfully into Season 2 — is one challenge that Fey says she finds “exciting.” It’s far from 30 Rockwhere the rate of laughter per minute was the standard, or SNLwhere wild, distinctive humor and pure experience were the currency. Writing and acting on a show with room for dramatic twists — ones that can be handled with both real gravitas and grounded humor — became the new logical frontier for Fey to push her already impressive career forward.
“To allow something like Nick’s death to happen was kind of dramatic,” she said. “When you’re writing a TV series, especially a series that airs today with a 22-episode season, you really have to prevent a lot from happening, because your goal is to keep it going for eleven years. People don’t get married until season seven, they don’t have a kid until season eight. You’re trying to maintain some sort of stasis. So it’s exciting to let these things happen. Now we’re trying to figure out: What’s the right amount that can happen and still feel like it? Does it feel like we’re going too fast? It’s more difficult to get past the first season.
Skipping Season 1 was a quick decision for Netflix, and now taking the series to Season 3 and beyond seems like a given. The show’s ratings are tracking better than the first season – it immediately reached the top of the most-watched TV show in the US chart, giving the first season a 78 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. With 13 critics now weighing in on Season 2, The four seasons It sits 85 percent fresh.
Which brings things back to Forte and his long-awaited homework. If the ratings weren’t incentive enough, he’s already come up with a new answer as to why the film remains unwatched — one that flatters Alda and reframes the whole thing as a sign of serious craftsmanship.
“I came up with a better and different answer,” Forte interrupted, smiling. “It was an acting choice. There’s no way to portray the character of Jack exactly as Alan Alda did. So I wanted complete freedom. I didn’t want to feel tempted to imitate. I didn’t want any of that in the performance.”
Faye noted, barely suppressing a chuckle, that he was essentially introducing himself as the Daniel Day-Lewis of the situation.
“Yes,” Forte replied, deadpan. “And now I’m retiring to repair shoes.”
Season one and two of The four seasons Available now on Netflix.
