The Four Seasons

We first found The Four Seasons on one of those hotel TVs during a wedding trip — the kind where Netflix is basically your only entertainment option between local news and $40 skin flicks. So, Netflix it was. We went scrolling, got fatigued, saw Steve Carell and Tina Fey on a poster, and figured worst case scenario: it'd be easy company for the night.

Instead, the show snuck up on us. Adapted from the 1981 Alan Alda film, The Four Seasons follows a longtime group of friends whose seasonal vacations slowly become less relaxing and more hazardous. Divorces settle in. New girlfriends enter the group. Passive-aggressive dinners start creeping into every shared Airbnb. Everybody keeps insisting they're having fun while quietly unraveling a little inside.

We started episodes thinking, "alright, one more before dinner," then found ourselves lingering in the hotel room debating whether to go downstairs or just order another bottle of wine and keep watching. Not because we were blown away or totally gripped, but because it was comfy. Like the warm grip of your duvet on a rainy morning. The longer you linger in it, the harder it becomes to leave the hotel.

The seasonal structure really works because you can feel the friendships aging in real time. Little comments start landing harder. People pair off differently. Vacations start feeling like yearly check-ins nobody knows how to cancel.

Steve Carell's storyline sneaks up on you the most. At first, his post-divorce "freedom" and younger-girlfriend flirts with sitcom territory. Then somewhere along the way, it turns into something honest about aging, loneliness, and realizing the second half of your life may look nothing like the one you pictured.

Is The Four Seasons reinventing television? Not remotely. But it touches a specific feeling: being trapped in a beautiful vacation house with people you've loved for twenty years while slowly realizing that everyone changes.

We were prepared for easy company. We got something a little better.