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10 Actresses Who Made Powerful Comebacks After Break: From Drew Barrymore to Jennifer Lopez
Hollywood has seen several actresses take a break from the spotlight to focus on their personal lives or rediscover themselves away from the attention. When they return to the showbiz after years to deliver breathtaking performances, audiences cannot stop gushing. In an industry with "out of sight, out of mind" mentality, these actresses have proven that their fandom can wait years to see them grace the silver screen or television again, no matter how long their sabbatical was. Here are 10 actresses who reclaimed their place in the industry and returned to acting after a break! Nicole Richie Comeback Project: Great News Director/Producer: Tracey Wigfield Release Year: 2017 Nicole Richie rose to fame with the reality show, The Simple Life, which also featured Paris Hilton and aired from 2003 to 2007. The show abruptly came to an end when both Richie and Hilton faced DUI charges. Post the controversy, she remained out of the spotlight for over a decade. In 2017, she made a major comeback as Portia Scott-Griffith in the NBC sitcom Great News. She is now married and also has two kids. Richie also launched a successful fashion line, named House of Harlow. Drew Barrymore Comeback Project: The Wedding Singer Director/Producer: Frank Coraci Release Year: 1998 Drew Barrymore had a troubled childhood. After achieving immense fame as a child actor in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and Firestarter (1984), the actress's life went downhill. She started drinking alcohol at 9, began smoking pot regularly by 10, and was addicted to cocaine by 12. She was sent to a rehab center at 13 and again at 14, when she tried to commit suicide by cutting her wrists. Despite her struggles and bad image, she continued to work in the industry, but the 1998 film The Wedding Singer brought her back to the forefront. After rebranding her image, she continued to be a highly bankable star in Hollywood. Betty White Comeback Project: The Proposal Director/Producer: Anne Fletcher Release Year: 2009 Betty White made a mark in the industry as a television actress on the CBS sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1973–1977) and the NBC sitcom The Golden Girls (1985–1992). In 2009, she made her comeback in the romantic comedy film The Proposal with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. She later starred in You Again and did voice work for several other projects. She died on December 31, 2021, seventeen days before her 100th birthday. Jennifer Lopez Comeback Project: Hustlers Director/Producer: Lorene Scafaria Release Year: 2019 After starring in the 2003 film Gigli with Ben Affleck, JLo didn't bag a major acting role, so she decided to focus on other passions, like singing. However, in 2019, she once again proved her acting prowess in Hustlers, which also starred Constance Wu, Julia Stiles, Lili Reinhart, Keke Palmer, Lizzo, and Cardi B. Since then, she has delivered several groundbreaking performances in films like Marry Me, Shotgun Wedding, The Mother, Atlas, Unstoppable, and Kiss of the Spider Woman. Next, she will feature in Office Romance, directed by Ol Parker, written by Brett Goldstein. Hilary Duff Comeback Project: Younger Director/Producer: Darren Star Release Year: 2015 Disney darling Hilary Duff shot to fame in the early '00s by playing Lizzie McGuire in the titular TV series and movie. She also played pivotal roles in Cheaper by the Dozen and A Cinderella Story. However, post that, she vanished from the screens and only made a few cameos here and there. In 2016, she decided to make a comeback with TV Land's Younger as the main lead, Kelsey Peters. The series' finale aired in June 2021. The role brought her back to the spotlight, and her fans were all praise for her performance. Natasha Lyonne Comeback Project: Orange Is the New Black Director/Producer: Jenji Kohan Release Year: 2013 Natasha Lyonne surprised fans with her acting in the 1999 teen comedy American Pie. However, she struggled to bag a major role in films or television shows later. After taking up several small roles, she bagged her breakthrough project in 2013. She starred as Nicky Nichols in Orange is the New Black and proved that it's never too late for a comeback. She later played the role of Nadia Vulvokov in Russian Doll, further cementing her status in Hollywood. Winona Ryder Comeback Project: Stranger Things Director/Producer: The Duffer Brothers Release Year: 2016 Before getting arrested in 2001 for shoplifting, Winona Ryder played several pivotal roles in films and television shows. When the controversy resulted in an unannounced ban from Hollywood, she took a four-year career hiatus. Even though she starred in several films from 2006 to 2015, her major comeback project is seen as Netflix's science fiction-horror series Stranger Things. In the show, she was seen as Joyce Byers, a single mother whose 12-year-old son Will vanishes mysteriously. Jane Fonda Comeback Project: Monster-in-Law Director/Producer: Robert Luketic Release Year: 2005 Jane Fonda's breakthrough role came in the 1965 film Cat Ballou. In 1968, she played the title role in the science fiction spoof Barbarella, which established her status as a sex symbol. She won her first Academy Award for Best Actress in 1971, for Alan J. Pakula's neo-noir psychological thriller Klute. In the 80s, she became the queen of fitness and released several workout videos. After a fifteen-year hiatus, she released two new fitness videos on DVD in 2010. In 2005, she returned to the screen with the box office success Monster-in-Law, starring opposite Jennifer Lopez. Mädchen Amick Comeback Project: Riverdale Director/Producer: Warner Bros. Television and CBS Studios Release Year: 2017 Mädchen Amick was an acting sensation in the '80s and '90s. But her career saw a few years of quiet in the 2000s until she starred as Alice Cooper in CW's dark mystery TV show, Riverdale, based on the Archie comic book series. On the silver screen, she was last seen as Jean Brooks in the 2005 film Lies and Deception and also played a small role as Shannon Pace in the 2011 film Priest. Marisol Nichols Comeback Project: Riverdale Director/Producer: Warner Bros. Television and CBS Studios Release Year: 2017 Marisol Nichols made her movie debut as Audrey Griswold in the film Vegas Vacation with Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo. She also starred in the drama series Resurrection Blvd.. The Princess and the Marine, Cold Case, and Blind Justice. Before a five-year hiatus, she starred in the ABC TV series GCB, with Leslie Bibb, Kristin Chenoweth, Annie Potts, Jennifer Aspen, and Miriam Shor. In 2017, Nichols starred as Hermione Lodge, the mother of Veronica Lodge, in Riverdale. The journeys of these actresses who made powerful comebacks after taking a break are nothing short of inspirational. Each of them defied the odds, navigated personal and professional challenges, and returned to the screen with a renewed sense of purpose. In an industry that often sidelines women after a certain age, these women shattered stereotypes and redefined what it means to be successful on their terms.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Tina Fey's ‘The Four Seasons' Takes a Step Outside the Comedy Icon's Comfort Zone, but Doesn't Thrive There: TV Review
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways Few writer-producers have a house style as distinct as Tina Fey's — so much so that the '30 Rock' creator's signature extends to an entire universe of shows under her umbrella. Fey did not have a showrunner's direct control over 'Mr. Mayor,' 'Great News,' 'Girls5Eva' or the Peacock revival of 'Saved by the Bell,' but all of these series have a distinct family resemblance. They're absurd, efficiently structured, joke-dense comedies, often soundtracked by a clarinet-heavy score from composer Jeff Richmond, who is also Fey's husband. Richmond is just one of many names that recur across Fey projects, a consistent roster that both guarantees a shared DNA and cultivates experienced talent over time. Fey's latest effort, the Netflix miniseries 'The Four Seasons,' partly extends this MO. Fey co-created the show with '30 Rock' alumnae Tracey Wigfield, who went on to spearhead 'Great News' and 'Saved by the Bell,' and Lang Fisher, who returns to Feyworld after co-creating the coming-of-age hit 'Never Have I Ever.' (Fellow mainstays David Miner and Eric Gurian also executive produce.) Fey even stars as a grouchy, judgmental, Liz Lemon-scented woman embracing her middle age, alongside previous screen partners Steve Carell ('Date Night') and Will Forte (Paul L'astnamé!). More from Variety But 'The Four Seasons' also marks a sharp break from nearly two decades of tradition. For one, it's an adaptation in a CV otherwise marked by original ideas, assuming the Vivaldi-inspired premise of the 1981 film written and directed by Alan Alda, who gets both a cameo and a producer credit in this update. ('Saved by the Bell' was technically a reboot, though in practice it was more like a total personality transplant that happened to carry over a few characters.) Fey's repertory company expands to include newcomers Colman Domingo, Marco Calvani and Kerri Kenney-Silver. And most notably, the tone skews decidedly dramedic, trading a rapid pace of punchlines for a more melancholy take on long-term matrimony. 'The Four Seasons' is ultimately able to deliver some astute insights into adult relationships, but also struggles to settle into this awkward new rhythm. The Fey brain trust is visibly working to expand its repertoire — an effort that, inevitably, comes with some growing pains. 'The Four Seasons' traces a year in the lives of three couples, broken up into four group trips that each get their own two-episode block. When Nick (Carell) announces his intention to leave Anne (Kenney-Silver) on the eve of their 25th wedding anniversary, it rattles both Jack (Forte) and Kate (Fey), who tend to affirm the state of their own union by commiserating over others', as well as Danny (Domingo) and Claude (Calvani), whose opposing temperaments (Claude runs hot, Danny cold) are tested when Danny's health problems lead the interior designer to bury himself in work. The ripple effect of Nick's actions plays out over a weekend at a country home (Spring), an ill-fated stay at an eco-resort (Summer), a family weekend at a liberal arts college (Fall) and, finally, a ski vacation (Winter). Like a humbler version of 'The White Lotus,' each getaway acts as a pressure cooker. While Richmond is still credited with the series' music, the soundscape of 'The Four Seasons' is naturally dominated by the iconic classical compositions that give the show its name. In between the bursts of strings is mostly silence — and nothing will make you realize how important sound is to the Fey school of humor like its absence. Visually, 'The Four Seasons' has the flat, slightly artificial look of a sitcom. (Three seasons are respectively helmed by Fisher, comedy fixture Oz Rodriguez, and married duo Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman; Richmond and Domingo split duties for Fall.) Aurally, the show maroons sight gags like a pedal-powered booze bus or a clumsily staged piece of theater, leaving the viewer with mixed messages about how grounded this world is meant to be. The questions raised by Nick's decision, after all, are quotidian ones. Is he a coward for bailing on the work of lifelong commitment, or brave for charting a new path? Are his friends horrified by this textbook midlife crisis, down to the fancy sports car and younger girlfriend, or jealous of Nick's freedom? The split also comes with more practical issues, like how the group should maintain separate ties with Nick and Anne now that the couples' trip mainstays are no longer a couple. The portrayal of Nick's new flame Ginny (Erika Henningsen) is kinder than that of the literal children in Fey's deliciously caustic 'SNL' sketch 'Meet Your Second Wife,' but only just. Before she's rounded out into a full person, Ginny is a font of easy cracks about Burning Man attendance and beach yoga. Here, again, the muddled tone takes its toll: it's fine for a purely comedic character to be a narrowly defined archetype, like the airhead assistant on '30 Rock,' but in a more serious context, the same approach risks being cruel. 'The Four Seasons' is more duly nuanced when it comes to other in-group dynamics. Most rewarding is the platonic bond between Danny and Kate, two jaded cynics whose lived-in rapport belies Oscar nominee Domingo's recent addition to this crew of comedians. The openness of Danny and Claude's marriage is also presented in a matter-of-fact way amid, if clearly separate from, their friends' wrestling with fidelity. (The presence of a queer, interracial couple is one of the more major changes from the movie, but one that's largely allowed to speak for itself.) Jack and Kate's problems are more subtle and slow to emerge than the other pairs'; with brisk, half-hour episodes, this sometimes manifests in their tensions being spelled out rather than shown. 'Everyone else gets the top-shelf version of your personality,' Kate sighs of her people-pleasing spouse. It's a great line, but with so many other relationships sharing the spotlight, it's the main way we learn about their particular woes. Just as 'The Four Seasons' starts to settle in and find its way, Fey, Wigfield and Fisher throw in a morbid twist the show is too unsteady to bear without buckling under its weight. Ever since 'Scenes From a Marriage,' TV has proven an ideal medium for putting monogamy under a microscope; its length affords space to recreate the feeling of intimate companionship. Yet 'The Four Seasons' can't resist blowing up its mundane, if engaging, stakes — if not with jokes, then with a destabilizing turn. Fey & Co. aren't yet as adept at prolonged character study as they are at pure comedy. Then again, they haven't had nearly as much practice. All eight episodes of 'The Four Seasons' are now streaming on Netflix. Best of Variety Sign up for Variety's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Time Magazine
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
The Four Seasons Reveals a Side of Tina Fey That's Been Hiding in Plain Sight
Warm. Wistful. Tender. Empathetic. These are not words typically associated with Tina Fey, whose humor has a reputation for being brutal. But they all apply to The Four Seasons, a new Netflix dramedy series co-created by and starring Fey that follows three apparently settled middle-aged couples through a year of upheaval. Absent are the absurd characters, rapid-fire jokes, and dryly pessimistic social commentary with which Fey made her name on Saturday Night Live, and that have defined her career, from Mean Girls to 30 Rock. In their place is a moving depiction of marriage and friendship among Gen X empty nesters. A partial explanation for the shift in tone is that The Four Seasons wasn't entirely conceived by Fey and her collaborators, Lang Fisher (Never Have I Ever) and Tracey Wigfield (Great News). It's based on writer-director-star Alan Alda 's 1981 film of the same name—an urbane box-office hit that has since been overshadowed by quintessentially '80s rom-coms like When Harry Met Sally. As in Alda's version, the title refers to four seasonal group vacations (two half-hour episodes apiece in the series), each set to the appropriate Vivaldi concerto. Alongside a cast stacked with fellow A-listers Steve Carell and Colman Domingo, Fey plays Kate, a responsible, high-strung pragmatist married to a passive, philosophical man, Jack (SNL alum Will Forte); Carol Burnett and Alda originated the roles. Fey is well aware that this all represents a left turn for her. In a recent appearance on her old friend and sometimes comedy partner Amy Poehler's podcast, Good Hang, she described it as 'a very, very gentle program' whose reception she's curious to observe. So compassionate is her approach, in fact, that it casts the nearly three decades' worth of work that preceded it in a new light. Beneath the veneer of misanthropy and the din of controversy her perspective has often incited lies a more generous sensibility that was always present but is only now coming to the fore. 'Authenticity is dangerous and expensive,' Fey counseled Bowen Yang in a 2024 interview for Las Culturistas, the podcast that the current SNL star co-hosts. Yang had gotten too famous, she said, to keep broadcasting blunt opinions on people with whom he might someday have to work. 'Are you having a problem with Saltburn?' Fey asked. 'Keep it to yourself. Because what are you going to do when Emerald Fennell calls you about her next project, where you play Carey Mulligan's co-worker in the bridal section of Harrods and then Act 3 takes a sexually violent turn and you have to pretend to be surprised by that turn?' Both the substance of Fey's playful excoriation—that when you're a celebrity, anything you say can be used against you—and the fact that it went viral are telling. For most of her career, and certainly since her portrayal of the harried, unglamorous sketch-show head writer Liz Lemon in 30 Rock coincided with the rise of pop feminism in the late aughts, her every plot and utterance has been widely scrutinized. Tina Fey superfans may be legion, but she's also absorbed more than her share of misogyny as well as criticism for her button-pushing approach to identity politics. Plenty of the latter pushback has been not only justified, but necessary. Before the Black Lives Matter movement forced a reckoning in Hollywood, Fey made the poor decision to show white performers in blackface on 30 Rock. While the joke was always at the expense of an ignorant white character or a racist entertainment industry, context couldn't outweigh the images' hurtful impact. In 2020, she apologized and had those episodes pulled from streaming services. Yet the hair-trigger sensitivities of audiences predisposed to judge Fey harshly have also fueled ridiculous backlashes. Following 2017's white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, the UVa alum caught flak for an SNL 'Weekend Update' bit in which she jokingly urged viewers to drown their rage in cake instead of getting into fistfights with Nazis. No one watching in good faith could've mistaken her for excusing the marchers. (She even sneaked in unusually progressive opinions for broadcast TV: 'It's not our country. We stole it from the Native Americans. And when they have a peaceful protest, at Standing Rock, we shoot at them with rubber bullets. But we let you chinless turds march through the streets with semiautomatic weapons.') Nor was it hard to see she was playing an exaggeratedly naive version of herself. Still, she was self-critical enough to judge the segment as a failure. 'If I had a time machine,' she said on David Letterman 's Netflix show My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, 'I would end the piece by saying… 'Fight [the Nazis] in every way except the way that they want.'' When Fey gets in trouble, whether for legitimate or specious reasons, it's usually because her darkest humor is built atop a layer of cynicism about society—and Hollywood as a mirror of it—that isn't always easy to unearth. Viewers got that her acclaimed SNL portrayal of an airheaded Sarah Palin reflected the then VP candidate's pandering to a demographic that wanted women in politics to be 'Caribou Barbie.' But they sometimes missed that the stars of 30 Rock 's show-within-a-show, Jenna Maroney and Tracy Jordan, embody certain awful stereotypes about white women and Black men not because Fey was saying they truly represented those groups but because showbiz rewards performers who reflect audiences' prejudices. It's not hard to imagine why—at this point in her prolific career, but also at this toxic moment for the cultural conversation—Fey might want a break from satire. (She has long been rumored to be a top candidate to run SNL should her mentor Lorne Michaels ever retire, but her disinclination to keep wrestling the zeitgeist makes it seem doubtful she'd want the job.) Indeed, she appears to be making an effort to avoid stress in her professional life. Her current comedy tour with Poehler reportedly finds the duo bantering in pajamas. She spoke on Good Hang about making time, after years of overwork, to 'just be a person in this world and maybe, like, watch a program.' In the same episode, Fey explained her approach to making The Four Seasons. 'I worked hard to build it to be a really healthy set and really, like, humane hours,' she said. 'I was also extremely purposeful about bringing together people who I believed were good people who would not make any trouble for me.' The disproportionate share of criticism Fey attracts is, in a way, a testament to how effectively she's caricatured herself over the years—as a schoolmarmish killjoy, a mousy prude, a blithely self-righteous white feminist—for an audience prone to conflating comedy with reality. She's copped to having been a ' caustic ' judge of her peers as a teen, but the characters she usually inhabits, onscreen and as a public persona, are, to borrow words Fey frequently uses herself, ' square ' and ' obedient.' A recent talking point has been her Enneagram personality test type: the Achiever. Fey's character in The Four Seasons is a more grounded, sympathetic version of this uptight woman. Kate can micromanage her friend group and her marriage, but when she errs toward officiousness, it's because that's her way of caring for people. 'You've gotta always be the good guy,' she complains to Jack. 'And that only leaves one other part.' The series is similarly generous with other characters. The revelation that Carell's Nick plans to leave his wife Anne (Kerri Kenney-Silver) after a gathering for their 25th anniversary drives the plot, throwing off both the other two couples and the overall group dynamic. But Nick comes off as less of a jerk than he is in Alda's movie and more of a man struggling with his mortality. While Anne fades into the background of the film post-split, Fey goes to great, sometimes a bit clumsy lengths to honor the perspective of the jilted wife. Where was she hiding this humanism, after years of depicting characters at their vain, stupid, oblivious worst? In plain sight, actually. There is no better indicator of a writer's worldview than how they end their stories. In that regard, Fey has always been sneakily optimistic. Mean Girls is often likened to the pitch-black high school satire Heathers, but Heathers concludes, after multiple murders, with its villain's suicide, while Mean Girls leaves us with a reformed queen bee and a utopian teenage social order. Whereas Seinfeld, another deadpan NBC sitcom about self-absorbed New Yorkers, notoriously condemned its characters to prison, 30 Rock let Liz finally have it all: the career, the baby, the hot husband. Fey's next big project, the Netflix comedy Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, wrung humor out of an abused, traumatized kidnapping victim's adventures in a cruel city plagued by economic inequality. But—and here the clue is right there in the title—Kimmy's tenacity won out. The Four Seasons is probably not destined to become a classic like 30 Rock and Mean Girl s; it offers neither the many madcap highs nor the occasional tone-deaf lows of Fey's best work. Still, it's a thoroughly enjoyable watch, one that reflects the wisdom and patience of age rather than the merciless genius of youth. Best of all, it reveals a hidden, humanizing dimension of the most fascinating character Tina Fey ever created: Tina Fey.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Tina Fey's ‘The Four Seasons' Takes a Step Outside the Comedy Icon's Comfort Zone, but Doesn't Thrive There: TV Review
Few writer-producers have a house style as distinct as Tina Fey's — so much so that the '30 Rock' creator's signature extends to an entire universe of shows under her umbrella. Fey did not have a showrunner's direct control over 'Mr. Mayor,' 'Great News,' 'Girls5Eva' or the Peacock revival of 'Saved by the Bell,' but all of these series have a distinct family resemblance. They're absurd, efficiently structured, joke-dense comedies, often soundtracked by a clarinet-heavy score from composer Jeff Richmond, who is also Fey's husband. Richmond is just one of many names that recur across Fey projects, a consistent roster that both guarantees a shared DNA and cultivates experienced talent over time. Fey's latest effort, the Netflix miniseries 'The Four Seasons,' partly extends this MO. Fey co-created the show with '30 Rock' alumnae Tracey Wigfield, who went on to spearhead 'Great News' and 'Saved by the Bell,' and Lang Fisher, who returns to Feyworld after co-creating the coming-of-age hit 'Never Have I Ever.' (Fellow mainstays David Miner and Eric Gurian also executive produce.) Fey even stars as a grouchy, judgmental, Liz Lemon-scented woman embracing her middle age, alongside previous screen partners Steve Carell ('Date Night') and Will Forte (Paul L'astnamé!). More from Variety Tina Fey Asked Lorne Michaels if Jon Hamm Was 'a D--' Before She Cast Him in '30 Rock': 'Let Me Know if He's Funny' 'The Four Seasons' Teaser: Tina Fey, Steve Carell's Netflix Comedy Follows Vacations Gone Wrong, Sets May Release Date Tracy Morgan to Star as Disgraced Football Player in NBC Comedy Pilot From Tina Fey and '30 Rock' Producers But 'The Four Seasons' also marks a sharp break from nearly two decades of tradition. For one, it's an adaptation in a CV otherwise marked by original ideas, assuming the Vivaldi-inspired premise of the 1981 film written and directed by Alan Alda, who gets both a cameo and a producer credit in this update. ('Saved by the Bell' was technically a reboot, though in practice it was more like a total personality transplant that happened to carry over a few characters.) Fey's repertory company expands to include newcomers Colman Domingo, Marco Calvani and Kerri Kenney-Silver. And most notably, the tone skews decidedly dramedic, trading a rapid pace of punchlines for a more melancholy take on long-term matrimony. 'The Four Seasons' is ultimately able to deliver some astute insights into adult relationships, but also struggles to settle into this awkward new rhythm. The Fey brain trust is visibly working to expand its repertoire — an effort that, inevitably, comes with some growing pains. 'The Four Seasons' traces a year in the lives of three couples, broken up into four group trips that each get their own two-episode block. When Nick (Carell) announces his intention to leave Anne (Kenney-Silver) on the eve of their 25th wedding anniversary, it rattles both Jack (Forte) and Kate (Fey), who tend to affirm the state of their own union by commiserating over others', as well as Danny (Domingo) and Claude (Calvani), whose opposing temperaments (Claude runs hot, Danny cold) are tested when Danny's health problems lead the interior designer to bury himself in work. The ripple effect of Nick's actions plays out over a weekend at a country home (Spring), an ill-fated stay at an eco-resort (Summer), a family weekend at a liberal arts college (Fall) and, finally, a ski vacation (Winter). Like a humbler version of 'The White Lotus,' each getaway acts as a pressure cooker. While Richmond is still credited with the series' music, the soundscape of 'The Four Seasons' is naturally dominated by the iconic classical compositions that give the show its name. In between the bursts of strings is mostly silence — and nothing will make you realize how important sound is to the Fey school of humor like its absence. Visually, 'The Four Seasons' has the flat, slightly artificial look of a sitcom. (Three seasons are respectively helmed by Fisher, comedy fixture Oz Rodriguez, and married duo Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman; Richmond and Domingo split duties for Fall.) Aurally, the show maroons sight gags like a pedal-powered booze bus or a clumsily staged piece of theater, leaving the viewer with mixed messages about how grounded this world is meant to be. The questions raised by Nick's decision, after all, are quotidian ones. Is he a coward for bailing on the work of lifelong commitment, or brave for charting a new path? Are his friends horrified by this textbook midlife crisis, down to the fancy sports car and younger girlfriend, or jealous of Nick's freedom? The split also comes with more practical issues, like how the group should maintain separate ties with Nick and Anne now that the couples' trip mainstays are no longer a couple. The portrayal of Nick's new flame Ginny (Erika Henningsen) is kinder than that of the literal children in Fey's deliciously caustic 'SNL' sketch 'Meet Your Second Wife,' but only just. Before she's rounded out into a full person, Ginny is a font of easy cracks about Burning Man attendance and beach yoga. Here, again, the muddled tone takes its toll: it's fine for a purely comedic character to be a narrowly defined archetype, like the airhead assistant on '30 Rock,' but in a more serious context, the same approach risks being cruel. 'The Four Seasons' is more duly nuanced when it comes to other in-group dynamics. Most rewarding is the platonic bond between Danny and Kate, two jaded cynics whose lived-in rapport belies Oscar nominee Domingo's recent addition to this crew of comedians. The openness of Danny and Claude's marriage is also presented in a matter-of-fact way amid, if clearly separate from, their friends' wrestling with fidelity. (The presence of a queer, interracial couple is one of the more major changes from the movie, but one that's largely allowed to speak for itself.) Jack and Kate's problems are more subtle and slow to emerge than the other pairs'; with brisk, half-hour episodes, this sometimes manifests in their tensions being spelled out rather than shown. 'Everyone else gets the top-shelf version of your personality,' Kate sighs of her people-pleasing spouse. It's a great line, but with so many other relationships sharing the spotlight, it's the main way we learn about their particular woes. Just as 'The Four Seasons' starts to settle in and find its way, Fey, Wigfield and Fisher throw in a morbid twist the show is too unsteady to bear without buckling under its weight. Ever since 'Scenes From a Marriage,' TV has proven an ideal medium for putting monogamy under a microscope; its length affords space to recreate the feeling of intimate companionship. Yet 'The Four Seasons' can't resist blowing up its mundane, if engaging, stakes — if not with jokes, then with a destabilizing turn. Fey & Co. aren't yet as adept at prolonged character study as they are at pure comedy. Then again, they haven't had nearly as much practice. All eight episodes of 'The Four Seasons' are now streaming on Netflix. Best of Variety The Best Albums of the Decade
