The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

I know, Season 2 was released on Prime only yesterday. And I told myself, I'd pace it, make the ten episodes last....no more than one episode a week. Wait, no more than one episode per day. Darn, I've devoured all ten in just 24 hours. And I want MORE! 10 stars for rating are not enough. The Marvelous Mrs. Maizel deserves 1000.

After hearing so many great things about The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and seeing it win so many awards I thought I'd finally gave it a chance. I'm so glad I did because now I'm hooked. I'm actually mad at myself for putting it off for so many years. I'm just about to finish the second season so I still have 3 more seasons to go but so far so good. Every character on the show shines, there's not a weak link on the entire series. The show takes place in the 1950's and follows Miriam "Midge" Maisel as she follows her dream of becoming a stand up comic after her life gets turned upside down following a divorce. It has an incredible cast that includes Rachel Brosnahan, Tony Shalhoub, Alex Borstein, Michael Zegen, Kevin Pollak, Luke Kirby and Marin Hinkle. It also has some award winning special guest appearances that pop up here like Zachary Levi, Sterling K. Brown, Wanda Sykes and Jane Lynch. There's too many great actors to even name that have guest appearances. Like I said the show has won so many awards including numerous Emmy's for the show itself and almost every actor I just named has won for their work on the show. I can't wait to finish it now!

This is a comedy about stand-up comedy, so it has to be pretty darn witty. And it is. But it's so much more.

The characters are incredibly likeable, particularly the lead who suffers sexism and setbacks with a plucky determination and a dream all her own. Those surrounding her are fascinating and unique, from her father (wonderfully played by Tony Shalhoub) to her manager and others, including a recurring version of Lenny Bruce, which is quite a gas.

The setting offers more flavour as we see, hear and smell late 50s Manhattan, particularly through the lens of an upper middle class Jewish-American family.

It's a show that is rich in personality and consistently so over 3 seasons. You'll be hooked by episode 2. Enjoy and, ahem, "tits up".

A lot of people would say we are in a "Golden Age" of television, providing feature quality series with acclaimed actors and indepth writing. And whilst it is of course somewhat debatable as there has always been great shows, it is indeed true that TV has gone through a great revolution.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is a great period-piece that offers great drama, in a somewhat lighthearted fashion, and showcasing incredible actors who sells the melancholiness and satire that one coveys beautifully.

It is a very near show overall, in terms of both cinematography, cutting and editing and writing and acting. Definitely a unique and great piece that I can not recommend enough!

I totally understand why they did what they did with the final season but I still don't love it. Season one and even season two and three were so charming and captivating because it was such a insular succinct story and world-you felt safe in this little world they created through the music and actors and characters and sets and costumes especially. Season four and five try to get too big and expansive which again I understand why-they were trying to build more into it and expand the story to the very end of Midges life, and explore some other themes and aspects of her life that weren't able to just be covered in the 1960s world and time frame. But honestly we didn't need it-it wasn't necessary; we would've been perfectly happy staying in the small world they created and just exploring and enjoying that place in space and who the character was in that time we didn't need to see the bitter or not bitter end. They also REALLY did us dirty by dropping Luke Kirby and Lenny Bruce almost entirely from the fifth season. They were so good together and the performances of them two on screen were so fun and so rich and so meaningful and we didn't get to see any of it or enjoy that! Again I understand that they felt Lenny Bruce served specific purpose and he wasn't really needed for that purpose in the same way in the fifth season but again we just wanted to enjoy the characters on screen we weren't asking for some great deep thing we just wanted to see them! Not only that but we got cheap replacement of Gordon ford-like who cares about him! His scene with midge were so meh! I DID love Carr and his rel with Susie-super cute.

The fifth season was also like a Gilmore girls reunion in a way that didn't really make sense. For example they brought back Milo as handsome man completely pointlessly and a lot of the other "funny" bits they were including throughout the season seemed very forced and pointless (eg zeldas plot) again because we lost a cohesive arc and line for the whole story so it just felt like bits and pieces together. They were good bits and pieces with some good writing and good jokes and good feeling moments (Tony shaloubs restaurant speech) but it didn't all go together cohesively because they were trying to do too much.

Also Midges character more broadly-and really Amy Sherman Palladinos writing-she seems to have these strong independent women but over and over the story progresses and the characters are lifted up both on this show and Gilmore girls by these magical men who fall in love with the leading ladies and basically do everything and give everything to them so it's like you're preaching independence yet there's always a man being the catalyst moving the plot forward. And this next point which mostly I like because I like living in a happy idealized world which is how ASP writes (except when it comes to the romantic relationships of her characters then it's all disaster and garbage over and over again-which is not what we want!), everyone always LOVES the main character. For example, I found it extremely unbelievable that male writing staff would be so quickly accepting and supportive of MM! So yeah while last season was solid and actually pretty good as far as endings go, I miss the MMM of season 1 And I miss Luke Kirby.