Lang Fisher favours ensemble comedies in which relationships matter as much as the laughs. We welcome the warmth, but The Four Seasons needs sharper jokes to distinguish its characters and their familiar complaints.
Fi1m perspective
In The Four Seasons (2025), a friendship group treats everybody’s relationship as everybody’s business. Fisher’s interest in relationships and personal growth suits this sort of ensemble comedy. The programme is decent, uneven company, and it shows both the appeal and the limits of her approach. We were frustrated by the marital complaints that arrived without a good enough joke: recognising the behaviour did not make us laugh. The warmth of the performances kept us interested.
Fisher’s route to these ensembles began with writing and directing at The Onion between 2007 and 2010. She joined the final season of 30 Rock in 2013, then wrote, produced and directed on The Mindy Project between 2013 and 2017. The important change came with Never Have I Ever (2020–2023), which she co-created and showran with Mindy Kaling, also directing episodes. The move into co-creation and showrunning gave her responsibility for how those relationships developed across seasons. The Four Seasons, co-created with Tina Fey and Tracey Wigfield, continues that work with an ensemble built around adult relationships.
Fisher’s careful attention to script structure and close work with actors are useful habits for this sort of television. In The Four Seasons, Colman Domingo makes the holiday company worth joining, and Fey’s Kate belongs to a capable ensemble that includes Kerri Kenney and Will Forte. We credit Fisher, alongside fellow writers and showrunners Fey and Wigfield, with helping to make that company inviting. The acting gives the series enough warmth to survive stretches when the jokes are doing little for it.
The harder task is to make each person’s complaint sound like something only that person would say. The writing does not consistently give these actors that distinction, despite its recognisable account of friends interfering in one another’s affairs. This is a shared weakness of the scripts, rather than something we can fairly pin on Fisher’s directing alone. More distinctive dialogue would let her actors do more than make familiar situations pleasant. Try The Four Seasons for Domingo, if warm company matters more tonight than regular laughs.
Biography
Lang Fisher is an American television writer, producer and director. She graduated from Columbia University in 2002 after attending Fountain Valley School of Colorado. She began her career as a staff writer for The Onion and its television spin-off Onion News Network.
Fisher wrote for the final season of 30 Rock (2013). She served as writer, director and co-executive producer on The Mindy Project (2013–2017) and as writer and co-executive producer on Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2017–2019). She co-created the Netflix series Never Have I Ever (2020–2023) with Mindy Kaling, acting as showrunner, writer and director. She co-created The Four Seasons (2025) with Tina Fey and Tracey Wigfield for Netflix, serving as co-showrunner, writer and director.
