When Netflix first unveiled The Four Seasons with a teaser a few weeks ago, I thought it looked likely to be worth watching – but now its full trailer has made me even more interested. The star-studded show looks like it won't just be all snarky one-liners and extravagant trips, with some emotional maturity behind it.
The series will land on 1 May, in just a couple of weeks, and I think it's likely to be a big hit for what is already one of the biggest and best streaming services on the market anywhere. After all, when you have names like Steve Carell and Tina Fey to stick on a poster (or a display ad), you're cooking with gas.
What I think looks great about The Four Seasons isn't just its cast, although Colman Domingo is a huge get at a time when his career is exploding. Rather, it's that the latest trailer makes it clear what the show is actually about – how both our friendships and our attitudes change over time, as we age.
The show will revolve around a group of three couples who've known each other for decades, but it'll take place in the framing narrative of a series of trips they take together. One will clearly be a camping trip, another will be a beach holiday, and there's a skiing trip in there too. Each time, it looks like we'll get a time-skip between the trips, with news to catch up on from the group.
Crucially, this won't all be light and easy – it's clear that each of the couples has its own dynamic, and not everyone is super happy at how their life has turned out. Steve Carell's character is heavily implied (or downright confirmed) to undergo a separation from his wife between two of the trips, and brings a new, younger partner to the next one.
All of this will be mined for comedy, of course, but it looks like there will also be emotional realities to confront, and I can't wait to see how they're handled. After all, most of the best comedies aren't relentlessly positive, but find ways to fold in the real difficulties of life.
