Comic actors make the commitment plunge

has been to watch two or three in a row at the beginning and really get a taste of it,” adds Yang.

With that in mind, it’s best if we don’t talk about where the show ends up. Suffice to say that Armisen’s and Rudolph’s characters — Oscar and June — are initially hoping to upend some of the routine that has built up in their relationship by going somewhere new for their annual vacation. And, well, they do.

But setting aside the aspects of the show that are better left to be discovered, “Forever” is often a surprisingly raw and often melancholy story about love and commitment. And despite the affectionate, natural rapport that’s regularly seen between its two leads, especially as their characters riff together about oddball thought experiments such as “the best way to spend a half an hour” or “the best way to sit,” the show is primarily concerned with how a relationship can fall apart.

“The first day we had to shoot a scene where we were fighting, and we had to apologize to each other a lot,” Rudolph says. “That was really strange for us.”

“Because we really do know each other pretty well,” Armisen adds.

“It’s like, ‘I’m so sorry I’m going to yell at you, I’m so sorry,’ ” she says, and they both laugh.

Their characters live in Riverside, which for the purposes of the show is a sleepy suburbia where Oscar finds comfort and routine while June begins to ache for something more. Loaded with tract homes and sunshine, the show’s setting was a personal choice for Yang, who grew up in the area (he’s quick to clarify that June’s views are not his own: “Don’t come after me, Riverside,” he says).

But that sense of place also was a consideration for the show, which came together among many ideas Yang and Hubbard pitched their stars as they first began talking about working together.

“We also liked the idea of putting Fred and Maya in the most normal conditions we could think of,” Hubbard adds. “It’s like, well, what if these two unbelievable comic actors were living together in Riverside as these very normal people?”

But more than an examination of a single couple’s struggles, “Forever” also explores the broader realities of long-term monogamy. A lovely and affecting episode featuring Jason Mitchell (“The Chi”) and Hong Chau (“Downsizing”) as two real estate agents recalls the rich digressions of Yang’s “Master of None,” and their story functions as a cautionary tale in a show that’s as concerned with the nuts-and-bolts tedium of a relationship as those lives that are left behind once a person chooses to partner with another.

“[‘Forever’] is really a look at the things we tend not to look at when we think about relationships. The length of time,” says Rudolph, who has been in a relationship with director Paul Thomas Anderson since 2001. “The day to day,” Armisen adds.

Armisen has been married twice, once for six years to U.K. musician Sally Timms and then to actress Elisabeth Moss for less than a year, ending in 2010. In 2016, he spoke on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast about his issues with intimacy, a form of which he said he found in his longtime collaboration with Carrie Brownstein on IFC’s “Portlandia,” which aired its eighth and final season this year.

“If you really do ask people in long-term relationships or marriages about this idea of being with the same person for the rest of your life, who knows what you would get?” Rudolph says. “Are they thinking, ‘Did I make a mistake? Am I with the person I’m meant to be with?’ There’s so many stages to relationships. I feel like I’ve loved examining this couple.”

Though the show has a cozy relationship with the darker realities of commitment, “Forever” feels like a hopeful story. But when confronted with considering whether Oscar and June — much less anybody else — are right for each other in the long run, the showrunners don’t have an answer.

“I think there’s a little bit of optimism at the end, but certainly the way some of it is written and shot, there’s a feeling of isolation,” Yang says. “I think we want people to draw their own conclusions.”

“We think about it all the time,” adds Hubbard. “One reason we wanted to write the show is because we don’t know.”