Transcript
Lang Fisher: You’re listening to OnWriting, a podcast from the Writers Guild of America East. In each episode, you’ll hear from the union members who create the film, TV series, podcasts, and news stories that define our culture. We’ll discuss everything from inspirations and creative process to what it takes to build a successful career in media and entertainment.
Tracey Wigfield: Hi, I’m Tracey Wigfield. I’m the co-creator of the Netflix miniseries, The Four Seasons. I also created the series, Great News, on NBC, and Saved by the Bell on Peacock. I was a writer on 30 Rock as well as The Mindy Project.
Lang Fisher: Hi, I’m Lang Fisher. I’m one of the other co-creators of The Four Seasons, along with Tracey and Tina Fey. I co-created the series, Never Have I Ever, and was a writer on 30 Rock, The Mindy Project and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
Tracey Wigfield: Today we’re going to be talking about the writing of comedy series.
Lang Fisher: To start, why don’t we talk about the writing of our new series, The Four Seasons?
Tracey Wigfield: No. No, we will.
Lang Fisher: Tracey, we have to.
Tracey Wigfield: No. I will. I will. I’m not sick of talking about it. Lang and I created this show with Tina Fey that came out on Netflix last week. Lang, when did we start talking about doing this?
Lang Fisher: Was it over two years ago? It was before the strike. We were meeting and trying to come up with show ideas with Tina.
Tracey Wigfield: Yeah. We had a couple blue sky meetings where we were pitching her ideas, and she was talking about the kind of show she wanted to do. It was very exciting for me. The reason I wanted to do this was because I wanted to work with Tina again and I was excited to get to create something with you, but to get to write for her as an actress seemed like a really exciting opportunity. To create something with her seemed like let’s not let this one slip by. Yeah. We started talking generally, I remember. We were talking about wanting to do a different tone and a different show. Lang, why did you want to do a different tone? Aren’t you happy with the tone we already do?
Lang Fisher: I love writing jokes. I love joke writing. I think I got a little bit of a… Not quite to the degree of what The Four Seasons is, but I feel like Never Have I Ever had a little more emotion in it than the previous episodic broadcast comedies I’d worked on. I liked that. I thought it was nice, and I felt like I wanted to explore that more. Yeah. I feel like you don’t pass up a chance to get to create something with Tina Fey. The fact that she was interested in doing a slightly different tone was also exciting. I was also very excited to create something with you, and I’m glad we’re still friends on the other side of it. Aren’t we?
Tracey Wigfield: Yeah. I think we are. It could have gone a lot of different ways. A lot of people who create shows with each other hate each other.
Lang Fisher: I know. You end up with two writers rooms, and one showrunner has a team and the other showrunner has a team.
Tracey Wigfield: They never speak to each other.
Lang Fisher: They never speak to each other. Some very successful shows have been made that way.
Tracey Wigfield: Yeah. Right. Then after that, how did we write a pitch, Lang?
Lang Fisher: Well, I think once Tina kept mentioning The Four Seasons and we landed on doing The Four Seasons as the idea, I remember us writing this pitch a little differently than we had done in the past because I feel like what we wanted to try to figure out was what are these four seasons? Where are they going? Who are our characters? Because of the structure of this series, I feel like it was a little different than if you’re writing a workplace comedy. It was like we made our pitch a little more of an outline than normal.
Tracey Wigfield: Yes. Because usually when I do a comedy pitch, it’s like… Tell me if you do a different. I usually tell a funny story from my life that’s related to [inaudible 00:04:34]-
Lang Fisher: Yeah. A personal story is the way you kick it off.
Tracey Wigfield: Then I real fast, half a page say, “This is what the show is about. It’s like Succession meets Jersey Shore,” or whatever. Some comps.
Lang Fisher: Sounds really good.
Tracey Wigfield: I know. Yeah. That’s my next show. I just thought of it this second. Then I usually do characters. I go through every character, and [inaudible 00:04:56] lot jokes in it and stuff. Then I talk about the pilot for two seconds. Truly, two seconds. Maybe four sentences. Then I do a thing about themes and possible episodes and what the arc of the season’s about, but it’s really vague. Could be anything. Then I have a summary at the end. Is that what you do?
Lang Fisher: Yeah. I feel like recently I’ve been told that what people want to hear are less plot, more what the character’s emotional stories are going to be over the season. I feel like we did that in our pitch. We were like, “Here’s these characters. They are all friends. Here’s what each one of them is going to deal with over the course of this season.” That seems to be what executives are more interested in rather than the nitty-gritty plot details.
Tracey Wigfield: Yeah. But this was the first pitch that I wrote like that because it’s a lot of work to have to-
Lang Fisher: To know what’s going to happen.
Tracey Wigfield: Yeah. We’ll figure it out in the room, but to have to really plot out. Some of it was the nature of the show that you needed to know vaguely and some things change, but you needed to know vaguely what are the tent poles happening to the characters in each of the four seasons? But I remember it being hard when we’d get to winter because we’d be like, “I don’t know. It’s at the end. I don’t know. We’ll figure it out. We can’t know right now. We haven’t written it yet.”
Lang Fisher: Just let us have a writer’s room, and we’ll get an answer to you.
Tracey Wigfield: Yeah. But then we pitched it around everywhere, and it did well. A bunch of places wanted it, but we were really excited about Netflix. You had had a show there. I had never had a show there, but I could see from the outside that just they have such a reach that I had not been able to experience before and I think we’re experiencing right now that just the show is internationally even. It is just getting to so many people, and it’s so exciting when you’re a writer, that part of it that you often can’t control how many people watch your show. You just at least know they’re going to market it, and it’s going to have a wide reach whether people keep watching it or like it is on you, but that’s why we picked Netflix.
Lang Fisher: Yeah. Then after we sold it to Netflix and we started the room about a year ago, the beginning of April I think. We had a room of… I feel like there was eight writing units, so either people or teams, including us, because we only had eight episodes. Then we worked for 20 weeks, and then started production. It was honestly the fastest turnaround of show I think I’ve ever been a part of. From pitch to it dropping on Netflix it was really fast, but it was nice.
Tracey Wigfield: What did you think in the room… Because we hired a lot of people that we had worked with before. We hired friends from 30 Rock and a lot of people who had deals at Universal that were just people we had been familiar with for a long time. What did you think was most helpful in the room?
Lang Fisher: Well, I think part of the reason we hired those people is because we wanted people to be the same age as our characters who are in that same part of their life and had been married for a long time and could speak to that. I think on this particular show, these are world-class joke writers, but we really wanted to mine their personal lives for any nuggets of truth about being in your 50s and having been married forever. I feel like the room we still ran in the same way we’ve always run a room where it’s like for the first few weeks you’re blue skying, you’re just coming up with any ideas. We had a pretty serious template already from our pitch.
We knew the big tent poles that were going forward of where our characters were going to go and what they were dealing with. But a lot of stuff also changed once we talked to the writers, and people identified with different characters and they were like, “Well, I don’t know, maybe this guy would do this, or maybe she would do that.” I think mostly just everyone being so open and vulnerable was the most helpful thing. Tracey, because there were three of us, do you think we had different roles? Most of the time you have one show runner, but we had three. What do you think the division of labor was? What do you feel like-
Tracey Wigfield: Tina was in the room a lot every day, so all three of us were in there breaking stuff together. I think we have a nice vibe because you and I have similar taste and we trust each other. I also think if we disagree on anything, there’s a person who’s the boss who could just be like, “It’s that one,” and we’re like, “Yeah. It’s that one. We’ll do that.”
Lang Fisher: Yeah. One of the three show runners is slightly higher than the other two.
Tracey Wigfield: More powerful.
Lang Fisher: Has maybe won a Mark Twain prize and the other two-
Tracey Wigfield: Let her decide. In a way, do you think it would be harder if it was just the two of us?
Lang Fisher: No. Because I think you and I are good at listening to each other. If one of us feels really strongly about something, I think we’ll give it a shot and see if it works. Oftentimes I feel like when you say something that’s the opposite of what I said, then I’m like, “Why does she feel that way?” Then I’m like, “Oh, that makes sense. I’m on board.”
Tracey Wigfield: I also think if we didn’t have Tina, what I… I think if you’re a good show runner, you also can listen to the consensus of… Everyone in the room is smart and has strong opinions, but that does happen quite a lot that it’s like half the room will feel one… Remember we… Was it about Frisbee, what episode it should be in or something?
Lang Fisher: Yeah. If Frisbee should be in five or six.
Tracey Wigfield: Yeah. Should it happen in the first fall episode or the second fall episode? There were reasons why people felt incredibly strongly it should be one or the other, to the point I think we had to do a blind vote.
Lang Fisher: We did a blind vote, and someone was out of the room at a doctor’s appointment. Then they came in and we were like, “You are the tiebreaker.”
Tracey Wigfield: You’re the decider.
Lang Fisher: They were like, “Oh, God.”
Tracey Wigfield: But I think if you are the only person who feels so strongly about something and everyone else disagrees with you, you’re usually wrong no matter what. I think Tina feels that way too. It’s like if you’re like, “No, it has to be this,” and everyone’s like, “I don’t know.” I cannot even think of one example in my career of when I’ve been like, “No, it was good I stuck to my gut.” It wasn’t. Everyone’s there for a reason because smart and you should listen to them.
Lang Fisher: It’s so true. The things that I’m like, “I will die on this hill.” Then it airs and you’re like, “Oh, yeah.”
Tracey Wigfield: Oh, no. They were right.
Lang Fisher: They were right. There was one thing that I just kept pushing for in the series, which was that Jack and Kate did gentle parkour as a [inaudible 00:12:56]-
Tracey Wigfield: Oh my God. Yes. This was another… I kept being like, “No, Lang. They can’t.”
Lang Fisher: I was like, “It’s going to be great. I have it in my head. It’s going to be slow motion, and then it snaps to regular motion and you see how feeble and bad it is.” It was like-
Tracey Wigfield: Which is funny. Which is a funny set piece of-
Lang Fisher: It’s funny but [inaudible 00:13:13]-
Tracey Wigfield: … middle-aged people doing parkour. You think they’re good at it, but really they’re gently [inaudible 00:13:17]-
Lang Fisher: They’re quite bad. It’s really gentle, and they’re just jumping off the curve of a street. But it would not have gone… It would’ve been bad in the show.
Tracey Wigfield: Well, it would’ve been bad because it just is a little character damaging or something.
Lang Fisher: It’s character damaging, and it was not helpful for the drive of their [inaudible 00:13:36]-
Tracey Wigfield: They also already had a… They had a dry fall thing they were doing, kind of slip.
Lang Fisher: Yeah. They had too many things. They had dry fall and parkour. Anyways, you got to learn to kill your darlings.
Tracey Wigfield: Yeah. No. That was good. But you were like, “Oh, yeah. Never mind. We shouldn’t do this.”
Lang Fisher: Occasionally my brain goes to more is more and I need someone to be like, “Uh-uh.” Then I’m like, “Okay. Yep. [inaudible 00:14:00]-”
Tracey Wigfield: But I think you and I are a nice balance for each… I think in rooms you have to… When you’re not running the room, you have to find where… Because I feel like I’ve done a role you’re quite good at where I think you’re very good at story math and will often be like, “Wait, we set up this thing, we never answered it.” I’ll be like, “Who cares?” You’re like, “No. Who cares? Someone will care. We have to do it.” But I feel like I’ve had that role in other rooms I’ve been in where there’s less people like that. I’m like, “Okay. It has to be my job to not logic police, but just to make sure everything’s adding up.” I think when you’re on staff on a show, it’s a little more you’re looking at what everybody’s doing and finding the spots that you can be the most helpful. But I think you and I… I don’t know, we do similar things. It’s not like you’re just doing story and I’m doing… We both are doing [inaudible 00:15:05]-
Lang Fisher: No. No. I actually think that a lot of times we flip-flop. I think there are times where you’re like, “I want this really silly thing. Let me have it.” I’m like, “You cannot have it.” Then I’m like, “Give me parkour,” and you’re like, “No.” It’s like we do have a nice balance. I think you also do a lot of really smart story moves and you are very good at… I think we have slightly different processes.
Tracey Wigfield: Wait. Tell me about it? What do you mean?
Lang Fisher: I find that I just have to spit out every idea in my head, even if they’re bad and embarrassing, and I just have to get them out or else it just is weighing down my brain psychically. I think you a lot of times will sit quietly and listen to everyone, and you are doing a lot of thinking in your head. Then you’ll say a good idea that comes out of your mouth. You don’t spit a lot of crap out, which I need to do.
Tracey Wigfield: Yeah. I think that is true because I think in my mind… But sometimes I think it looks like I’m zoning out or not paying attention.
Lang Fisher: [inaudible 00:16:16]-
Tracey Wigfield: But often I’ll be acting out the different… Well, if that happens than whatever. I don’t think I can… Yeah. I also feel like I do better typing. I really struggle with when I’m not the person typing the words on the cards that I have a hard time focusing or being like, “Wait, what?” Understanding what we’re talking about.
Lang Fisher: I don’t mind that. I like that you like to type in the script because I like to just sit back and watch the words come alive.
Tracey Wigfield: But that was something I learned from this process because when you’re running a show by yourself, it’s like, yeah, you’re always doing it. Because even when you and I work on other things, like on our movie, we… I feel like I have an easier time. It’s honestly paying attention. Paying attention. When someone else is typing, I think I start thinking about what’s for lunch. This was very interesting, but we digressed. What were we talking about? The writer’s room. Then we went into production in September of ’24, and that was another reason it was nice to have three showrunners. One was acting in the show, so she had to be there all the time. But between writing and production and editing and all the millions of meetings that happen in order for an episode to start, it really is a job for multiple people that you do as one person.
Lang Fisher: Especially because our room wasn’t done before we started shooting, so it’s like Tracey went to set and I kept running the room. Then once the room was done, Tracey and I flipped, and then I was on set and Tracey was doing all the editing. We were all working all the time.
Tracey Wigfield: There were always people on top of each job. It didn’t feel… It was a lot of work, but it didn’t feel overwhelming in any way.
Lang Fisher: It felt humane. Whereas when you’re a showrunner all by yourself, it’s both the pinnacle of your career and also the worst job.
Tracey Wigfield: Also the worst job. I also am just… Post was always late. That’s always the thing that I would be like, “All right. Well, but we’re shooting tomorrow so the writing has to be done and we’re shooting, so the production has to keep moving along to keep the trains running.” But it’s like post, I would always be like, “Yeah. Yeah. We’ll do that later.” They’d be like, “No, please. You’ll cost us money. We can’t do that later.” Then you end up in this jam where you’re editing 14 hours a day or whatever at the very end, but we did not have to do that because there were people who could stay on. It’s hard to stay on all three schedules.
Lang Fisher: Now, Tracey, what do you think in terms of what we wrote and what ended up on screen, do you feel like what we wrote was pretty close to… Was it as you envisioned?
Tracey Wigfield: Yeah. I think so.
Lang Fisher: I think so too. There wasn’t much improv. There’s almost zero, and everything came out the way that I had hoped it would.
Tracey Wigfield: Yeah. Me too. I think part of it was that we were so conscious of talking about tone and visual style and stuff more than any other show I’ve done before where I think maybe because other shows I’ve done were networky comedies, I think it’s a little bit on autopilot that it’s like, “It’ll just be one of those shows.”
Lang Fisher: Yeah. I think also because there was this movie that Alan Alda wrote and directed that was very precious to Tina, we had this… I don’t know, a little bit of a roadmap of the way it should visually look and feel. It should feel cozy. It should feel beautiful. I think the part of the reason we wanted to do this show was for that feeling, for that look, and to have this cast. So much of it was that we had this coup of casting the most amazing actors.
Tracey Wigfield: I feel like… I’ll answer the question then I’ll ask you the question. I feel like two obvious things that are so obvious that I should have known from the beginning of my television career but learned this year are that the comedy that I care about, that is all I care about. That when I started my career at 30 Rock, just getting jokes in was the only thing that mattered. Yes. We had interesting good storytelling, but the only thing… Not the only thing, but the most important thing that people want when they’re watching a show is do they care about the characters and what happens to them?
This is the fourth show I’ve run, and it has not occurred to me until this show that that is the most important thing. The other thing I’ll say too is on a show I worked on that was an hour long that I didn’t create, that was a Mindy Kaling show, it was a reboot of Four Weddings and a Funeral. I think I was starting to get a little bit like, “It’s important to…” The visual stuff is important too, but in the making of a show like that, actually putting into practice it has to look nice and people have to enjoy watching it in order for it to be successful didn’t occur to me really until this show.
