THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL: THE BEST COMEDY-DRAMA AMAZON PRIME HAS TO OFFER

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is an American Period Comedy-Drama Television Series created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, about a young mother of two, who discovers that she has a talent for stand-up comedy after her husband leaves her. The show premiered on Amazon Prime Video on March 17, 2017 and concluded on May 26, 2023. It takes place mainly in the late 1950s and early 1960s (with flash-forwards to later decades in the final season), and stars Rachel Brosnahan as Miriam "Midge" Maisel. It also stars Alex Borstein, Michael Zegen, Marin Hinkle, Tony Shalhoub, Kevin Pollak, Caroline Aaron, Jane Lynch and Luke Kirby.

The series has received critical acclaim, winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy in 2017 and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series in 2018, with Sherman-Palladino receiving Emmys for Outstanding Directing and Outstanding Writing. Brosnahan won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 2018 and two consecutive Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy in 2018 and 2019. Borstein won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series twice consecutively, in 2018 and 2019; and Shalhoub and Kirby won Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series and Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series in 2019, respectively. The show currently has a more than respectable 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, with an Audience Score of 81%. It has a 78 on Metacritic (based on 102 Critic Reviews) with a User Score of 8.0, and an 8.7/10 on IMDB (based on over 127,000 reviews).

I have to say, this show was a lot of fun, telling a fantastically unique story in whimsical fashion. The show was extremely feminist, but in a way that doesn’t beat you over the head for 43 episodes. The production design was amazing, doing a wonderful job of taking us back to 1950’s (and 1960’s) New York, as well as a few other places. The pace of the story felt steady throughout its entirety. The characters were tremendously witty, none more than Brosnahan’s “Midge” Maisel. The story arc was handled extremely well, though season five felt a bit discombobulated due to all of the time jumps back and forth. The writing was clever, and extraordinarily funny, providing more than a few laugh out loud moments. The actors were absolutely fantastic, especially the series regulars (Brosnahan most of all).

There were a few plot points in the last few episodes of the final season, wherein “Midge” made choices that contradicted who her character had been shown to be for the four and a half seasons we had spent with her prior, but other than that it was one of the most well-constructed characters I’ve seen in quite some time. The only other pet peeves I had with the show was that the last season felt a little all over the place, jumping back and forth to the future, skipping over a lot of the things (and the people) we would have cared about, while stopping almost twenty years shy of the actual present. And though I understand that the writers may not have wanted to go past the main characters’ expected lifespan in reaching its conclusion, the closing image just felt arbitrary to me. And while I’m “picking nits”, there was a lot of post 1960’s music used in the end credit scenes of the episodes, and at times it pulled you out of the time period in which the show exists. It was almost like the show itself would break character right at the very end of some of its episodes.

Despite the show’s few flaws, it was extremely well executed all the way around from beginning to end (as is reflected in the ratings and scores). I especially liked that the show runners were not afraid to let the story dictate the episode count instead of the other way around, and they were smart enough end the series before its charm started to wear off.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is available exclusively on Amazon Prime Video with a Subscription.