Tepid trouble in middle-aged paradise

In Netflix series The Four Seasons old friends contend with the fallout from a surprising breakup in the gang

- Margaret Lyons

The Four Seasons follows three couples on four vacations, two episodes per trip.

Everyone is thinking about his or her middle-aged ennui and the routines — ruts? — of marriage, what companionship and friendship look like in this chapter and the next.

The show is based on a 1981 movie with the same premise, written and directed by Alan Alda, who also starred. (He has a brief cameo here.) This Netflix version was created by Tina Fey, Lang Fisher and Tracey Wigfield, with Fey and Will Forte as Kate and Jack, the roles played originally by Carol Burnett and Alda. Their friends group is filled out by Steve Carell, Kerri Kenney-Silver, Colman Domingo and Marco Calvani, and the series's plot is similar, but not identical to that of the movie. The biggest change is that the prickly, talky humour and depth have been sanded down into mild, featherweight Netflix chow.

The Four Seasons is pleasant enough, but it never shakes the fact that most people would rather listen to the cast than the characters. Such talent, such humor, such icons! Anyway, here's a show where all of those lights are under a bushel basket.

In the first outing, everyone is at a lake house for the 25th wedding anniversary of Anne and Nick (Kenney-Silver and Carell). After a night of toasting one another and congratulating themselves on finding their soulmates, Nick shocks the guys by telling them that he plans to leave Anne. He isn't happy, and she's too stagnant.