One of my favorite new shows of 2025 was definitely Tina Fey’s The Four Seasons. With my Netflix subscription, I binged the heck out of this dramedy about a group of friends in their 50s. Still, when I saw that the second season would premiere as part of the 2026 TV schedule I had a moment where I questioned how the show could be returning so quickly in a TV landscape where series can have two-year hiatuses at minimum. So CinemaBlend just had to ask series star/creator Tina Fey and her colleagues about that relatively quick turnaround.
During my recent conversation with the creators of The Four Seasons, we discussed the novelty of streaming show returning in a relatively prompt amount of time. Fey explained how the creative process for the first season factored into the making of the second season:
We started pretty quickly after the first season aired. We started writing and we sort of knew like, ‘Okay, well there's a baby in the mix.’ And so that kind of sets the timeline of do we want to see this baby in utero or [what do we want]? We did talk about whether we should jump two years, but sometimes our brains get hurt doing the math of like what year it is in the show. Let's not think about it.
I love to see it! Tina Fey very much comes from the world of network TV, where it's historically been normal for shows to return every single year. And, of course, before that, she worked on Saturday Night Live, where the turnaround was even tighter. However, as she explained, one reason they really wanted to get moving on Season 2 was to allow for Ginny’s pregnancy plotline to play out like it was happening in real time. As co-creator Lang Fisher added:
We just like gunned it. Well you know, the funny thing about making our show is you can only make it at a certain time of year where it starts out really hot and then ends up really cold. So we are like, ‘We have to get going.’ Cause you can't start The Four Seasons in the dead of winter and have every season be extraordinarily cold. So, a lot of it was driven by that. And also I think [we like] having it come out every year so you feel like the time jump is the same for the characters as it is for us.
The Four Seasons Season 1 left viewers with two big bombs. Steve Carell’s character, Nick, unexpectedly dies and, when the friends and his partner, Ginny, reunite for his funeral, Ginny reveals she’s pregnant with the late hedge fun manager's baby. When we pick up with the gang this season, Ginny is hanging with them again for another one of their vacations, this time to spread Nick’s ashes. Co-creator Tracey Wigfield said this about getting the new season off the ground so soon:
I personally, as a viewer, get so frustrated 'cause I just have no memory. Like what happened on Euphoria three years ago? I'm having such a hard time. So, just as a fan, I like when shows can come out again as quickly as possible. I'm happy we were able to do that with this.
I totally agree with her! And, if Four Seasons had been on hiatus for two to three years like a lot of my other shows, the momentum of curiosity for what happens with these friends on their quarterly vacations just wouldn’t be the same. Because of this release method, I truly feel like I’m catching up with this group in real time rather than feeling like I need a big refresher at the start of the new season.
Joining Tina Fey on the show are Will Forte, Colman Domingo, Marco Calvani, Kerri Kenney-Silver and Erika Henningsen. Fans can see all eight episodes of Four Seasons Season 2 when they hit Netflix on Thursday, May 28. Here's also hoping the show's producers stick to the trend of releasing a new season yearly.
