The four stations (The Four Seasons, United States/2025). Creación: Tina Fey, Lang Fisher y Tracey Wigfield. List: Tina Fey, Will Forte, Steve Carell, Colman Domingo, Marco Calvani, Kerry Kenney. Available in: Netflix. Our opinion: buena.
There are series that are striking to present complex leading characters, full of nuances and contradictions. A commendable effort that sometimes results in fiction creatures that collect defects, traumas and tragedies that make them realistic but difficult to accompany in the route that the plot proposes. And that without counting those antiheroes created by design to disturb the spectators. None of that happens with the six central characters of The four stationsthe miniseries that is available from today in Netflix.
In an era that too many series use the resource to start with a hook of great impact and then build the story through explanatory flashbacks, This fiction prefers to avoid narrative tricks and concentrates on counting a plot in a classic and elegant way, trusting that its history has enough attractiveness to catch the public.
Created by Tina Fey (30 Rock), Lang Fisher (I never) y Tracey Wigfield (The Mindy Project) and based on the 1981 film written, directed and starred by Alan Alda, the dramatic comedy presents a group of life of a lifetime that, over the years, made its holiday meetings a seasonal and unmissable appointment. These are three couples formed by Nick (Steve Carell) and Anne (Kerry Kenney), Kate (Fey) and Jack (Will Forte), and Danny (Colman Domingo) and Claude (Marco Calvani), who love each other and demonstrate it in the healthiest possible way: speaking badly one of the other as long as the opportunity is presented.
Without evil and with a lot of humor, the characters exist in a universe where work, economic problems and the world of adults in general are in second or third plane. However, when reality manages to sneak into one of its encounters, the links of yesteryear begin to transform themselves in ways that are not always easy to cope with and that almost never make up everyone.
In eight half -hour episodes, two per station, Fey and his team manage to balance humor with an extraordinary sensitivity to capture the most emotional moments dodging, in general, the excess of sentimentality and unnecessary underlined.
Each of the couples has its time to shine and the same goes for the individuals that compose them, although the narrative is mostly based on their choral structure. A firm base largely thanks to the talents of all the interpreters involved. Carell, Forte, Fey and Domingo-who also took care of the direction of the sixth episode- stand out from the whole by composing their characters with a naturalness that the rest of the actors fail to reach at all, especially the Italian Calvani that seems to be representing the stereotype of the European gay man according to the gaze of the Americans. It is true that his Claude is in charge of sounding alarms on Danny’s health that no one, not even the first involved, wants to listen, and that his exaggerated and dramatic ways are the usual motive of the laughter of the rest of the group. An open conflict that at the same time results in one of the most satisfactory moments of the plot.
Beyond some interpretive inconsistencies, episode to episode the series it is right in the portrait of medium -sized friends whose marriages begin to show the cracks of the passage of time and accumulated misunderstandings. Kate and Jack seem to be the strongest couple, although the comfort of their link hides shortcomings that are not encouraged to face, while Danny and Claude have very different ways of seeing life and Nick and Anne crossed a devastating crisis.
With an intelligent comedy style that finds the perfect rhythm in most scenes thanks to a script built to detail, fiction stumbles alone when the balance leans too much towards drama. Anyway, these passages tend to overcome sooner rather than later.
The landscapes and vacation places also invite the viewer to identify with them, to discuss whether their ideal trip would be in spring and on the edge of a lake, on a tropical beach during the summer, in the colorful New England in the fall or in a remote winter cabin. In fiction each place and station brings with it a robust amount of discussions, laughter and anger as only friends can always sustain without risk of giving too serious injuries.
The four stations It is the series equivalent of taking a cup of hot tea on a cold and cloudy day, celebrates the healing power of friendship, laughs at the passage of time and proposes forgiveness and reconciliation as the best strategies to achieve such sought happiness.
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