Tina Fey to debut Netflix series

PHILADELPHIA — In a very Philly team-up, comedian Tina Fey and actor Colman Domingo will star in the upcoming Netflix series “The Four Seasons,” set to release this year. Fey, who grew up in Upper Darby, is the co-creator and co-writer of the rom-com, which she adapted from the 1981 film with the same name. The cast includes Fey, West Philly native Domingo, Steve Carell and “Saturday Night Live” alum Will Forte.

In a Netflix event last month, Fey explained that watching “The Four Seasons” as a kid left a big impact on her. “In 1981, when I was 11 years old, I saw a movie that really shaped my idea of what my future, grown-up life could be like. And that movie was ‘Porky’s.’ Then, thankfully, I saw a second movie,” Fey joked, according to TV Insider. “It was written and directed by the great Alan Alda, and it’s called ‘The Four Seasons.’”

The eight-episode series follows three couples, all longtime friends, on four vacations together over the course of a year. Drama ensues when one husband leaves his wife and brings his younger girlfriend along in her stead. Fey said her team has “assemble[d] a cast of beloved comedy actors that could create the same warm, human vibe of the original.”

The project has the blessing of original creator Alda, who is serving as a producer. Fey also tapped Lang Fisher (executive producer of “Never Have I Ever”) and Tracey Wigfield (creator/producer of “Great News”), two comedy writers who previously worked on Fey’s blockbuster NBC sitcom “30 Rock.” (Alda was a frequent guest star.) Fey and her husband Jeff Richmond, another “30 Rock” collaborator, are executive producers, as are Fisher and Wigfield.

“Tracey, Lang, and I have talked about the show being a love letter to long-term relationships, both platonic and romantic, because your life is ideally more than just the person you’re married to,” Fey said in a recent interview with the Netflix publication Tudum. “Sometimes when you are struggling with something with just your spouse, you need a group of friends to bring humor to it. Those friendships really help marriages, I think. Having a person who just fulfills a part of you that your spouse can’t quite [fulfill] is very important.”

In the years since finishing “30 Rock,” Fey created “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” (on Netflix) and the latest iteration of her iconic original comedy “Mean Girls,” which was turned into a musical, and then into a movie adaptation of that musical where Fey reprised her role as math teacher Ms. Norbury. She starred in the 2020 animated film “Soul” and Kenneth Branagh’s 2023 murder mystery “A Haunting in Venice.” The former “SNL” star — who recently toured with her “SNL” co-star Amy Poehler — has been one of the candidates rumored to be a potential replacement when “SNL” showrunner Lorne Michaels eventually retires.

Unlike Fey, though, Domingo has rarely flexed his comedy chops on screen in the past, so it will be fun to watch his comic side shine. The two-time best actor Oscar nominee’s previous roles include a wrongfully convicted thespian in “Sing Sing,” the cruel Mister in “The Color Purple” and civil rights activist Bayard Rustin in “Rustin.” Most recently he starred in the Netflix conspiracy thriller “The Madness,” about a Philly journalist framed for murdering an infamous white supremacist in the Poconos.

Beyond acting, Domingo has written plays as well, typically with Philadelphia characters. His 2012 dark comedy “Wild With Happy” premiered at New York’s Public Theater and last year became an audio play starring Domingo, Oprah Winfrey and “Abbott Elementary’s” Tyler James Williams.