--- title: "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" year: 2017 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/the-marvelous-mrs-maisel" fi1m_score: 76 critics_score: 78 critics_reviews: 10 published: "2026-09-17T19:29:38.444859+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T19:29:58.593691+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017) Created by Amy Sherman-Palladino · MPA TV-MA · Comedy, Drama **Fi1m score: 76** · Critics 78 from 10 reviews *In a sentence:* A divorce, a microphone and forty-three episodes of people who have never once in their lives paused for breath > Amy Sherman-Palladino’s comedy about a 1950s housewife who takes up stand-up is quick, handsome and built around a lead performance of real nerve. It talks too fast to notice that everyone in it sounds the same, and it runs longer than it should. ## Synopsis New York in the 1950s. Miriam ‘Midge’ Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) has a good flat, children, and a husband, Joel (Michael Zegen), who does stand-up at night at a club downtown using jokes borrowed from other comics. She goes along to watch and tells him what worked. Then Joel tells her he is leaving, and Midge, drunk, goes downtown and gets on the stage herself, where she is sharper than he ever was. Susie Myerson (Alex Borstein), who works the club, sees the set and decides Midge should be doing this for money. Midge’s parents, Abe (Tony Shalhoub) and Rose Weissman (Marin Hinkle), have views. ## Review Amy Sherman-Palladino made her name with [*Gilmore Girls*](https://film.one/tv/gilmore-girls), in which everyone talked faster than anyone else on television. *The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel* moves the talking to New York in the 1950s and gives it a reason. Miriam Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) is a housewife with children and a husband, Joel (Michael Zegen), whose hobby is performing other people’s stand-up material at a club downtown. When he leaves her, she goes to the club drunk, takes the stage, and is better at it than he ever was. The show is good: quick, handsome and carried by a lead who never asks to be liked. It is also five seasons built on one voice, and by the end we knew the rhythm of every line before it arrived. Brosnahan is the reason it works. Midge is vain, tactless, rich and certain, and Brosnahan plays all of that straight rather than winking past it. She lets you see what the tidy life has cost before Midge has worked it out herself. When she finally stands at a microphone the relief on her face is real, and we were surprised by how much we wanted her to be good. Alex Borstein’s Susie Myerson, who works the door at the club and decides to manage her, is the best thing in it. Susie is short, broke, dressed like a stagehand and permanently furious, and Borstein gives her something Midge never has, which is the ability to listen. Tony Shalhoub and Marin Hinkle, as Midge’s parents Abe and Rose Weissman, begin as types and become the people we most wanted to spend time with; Shalhoub’s Abe treats every family crisis as a problem set by an idiot. Kevin Pollak and Caroline Aaron, as Joel’s parents Moishe and Shirley, are louder and thinner. Luke Kirby drifts through as Lenny Bruce, the one comic in the series who sounds as though he is thinking. It looks lovely, and it knows it. Bill Groom’s production design gives us a flat of moulded ceilings and pink bathrooms, a department store counter, and a basement club with a floor you would not want to touch. The camera, with M. David Mullen one of four cinematographers, glides through all of it in long unbroken takes. The clothes are coats and hats in the colours of boiled sweets. Kate Sanford, Tim Streeto and the other editors cut to the dialogue, so the cutting is fast whenever the talking is fast, which is always. Eric Gorfain’s music is brassy and brisk and sits under the lines rather than against them. The trouble is the voice. Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino, who share writing and directing credits across the run, have one way of writing a scene: two people, a torrent of words, a joke in every line, no pauses. Midge talks this way, and so do Susie, Abe, Rose, the shop girl and the policeman. Everyone is a comic. That makes Midge’s act harder to judge, because it sounds like the rest of the dialogue delivered standing up, and it flattens a world that was meant to be resisting her. Somewhere in the third season we noticed we had stopped laughing at the jokes and started admiring the speed. The show also cannot bear to let her lose for long. She stumbles, and then someone important happens to be watching. One dissenting critic found her impossible to like; we would not go that far, but we understood. Set against *Gilmore Girls*, this is the more ambitious programme and the less relaxed one. Forty-three episodes across five seasons, from 2017 to 2023, is a long time to spend with people who never breathe, and the later runs send Midge further from the club and the flat, where the show is at its best, and grow baggier as they go. The first season, at eight episodes, is the tightest. Watch it one episode at a time. Taken in a run it turns into a wall of sound and the clothes stop registering. Taken slowly it is a smart, fond, expensive comedy about a woman who was only ever going to be interesting once her life fell apart, and Brosnahan makes you glad it did. *Fi1m score 76, published 17 September 2026.* ### Reviews we read (10) - **IndieWire**, Ben Travers (90/100, inferred): The critic praises the series as a sharp, feminist period piece about a housewife turning to stand-up comedy as rebellion. Rachel Brosnahan's performance is highlighted as a standout in Amy Sherman-Palladino's rapid-fire, witty world. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/shows/marvelous-mrs-maisel-review-gilmore-girls-new-series-amazon-1201898767/) - **Radio Times**, Hannah Shaddock (8.6/10): This 1950s-set comedy drama is warming and watchable like Gilmore Girls. Rachel Brosnahan brings steel to the role of a housewife-turned-stand-up comedian. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/programme/b-1ju7r5/the-marvelous-mrs-maisel/) - **The AV Club**, Gwen Ihnat (B+): The review calls it an ambitious, visually dazzling expansion of Sherman-Palladino's style into 1950s New York, with a compelling heroine and strong ensemble. It notes some pacing issues but highlights the period detail and Midge's liberating journey. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/the-marvelous-mrs-maisel-breaks-boundaries-for-its-mai-1820781756) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Tim Goodman (80/100, inferred): There is a lot to love, with rapid-fire jokes and a magnetic lead actress. The show stands out when Brosnahan stands up as the upbeat optimism and forward-looking aspects prove addictive. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/marvelous-mrs-maisel-review-1060798/) - **The i Paper**, Bernadette McNulty (80/100, inferred): The critic praises the spirited tempo and genuinely funny jokes that make the show zip along as both a loving historical homage and effortlessly funny. Rachel Brosnahan's charming and sharp performance stands out. [Read](https://inews.co.uk/essentials/marvelous-mrs-maisel-amazon-prime-review-effortlessly-funny-107109) - **Vulture** (80/100, inferred): The critic finds the show charming and lively, especially when Midge performs stand-up, crediting Brosnahan's energy and the sharp, period-authentic production design. It notes the familiar Sherman-Palladino rhythms but praises the heightened Manhattan moxie and costumes. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2017/11/the-marvelous-mrs-maisel-review.html) - **The Guardian** (75/100, inferred): The critic finds the series flawed and uneven in places but praises its very good core elements, especially Rachel Brosnahan’s performance as the housewife-turned-comedian who weaponises her wit in a man’s world, along with the strong period detail and the developing relationship between Midge and her manager Susie. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/nov/30/marvelous-mrs-maisel-review-women-war-mans-world) - **Variety**, Maureen Ryan (75/100, inferred): The series bristles with an energetic sense of discovery and Rachel Brosnahan is flat-out fantastic. Watching Midge hone her stand-up craft is the central pleasure, though the show is uneven. [Read](https://variety.com/2017/tv/reviews/marvelous-mrs-maisel-review-amazon-amy-sherman-palladino-1202623885/) - **The Ringer**, Alison Herman (90/100, inferred): The critic hails the series as Amy Sherman-Palladino’s best work yet and a glorious new phase for the creator in the streaming era. It singles out the smart setup of a content 1950s housewife discovering her voice as a stand-up comic. [Read](https://www.theringer.com/2017/12/08/tv/marvelous-mrs-maisel-review) - **Paste**, Amy Amatangelo (6.7): The series has strong visuals, costumes, and acting but feels artificial overall, with unlikeable self-centered protagonist Midge and underdeveloped supporting elements like her children. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/the-marvelous-mrs-maisel/the-marvelous-mrs-maisel-amazon-amy-sherman-pallad) ## Details - **Created by:** Amy Sherman-Palladino - **Creator:** Amy Sherman-Palladino - **Director:** Amy Sherman-Palladino, Daniel Palladino, Scott Ellis, Jamie Babbit, Daisy von Scherler Mayer, Dan Attias - **Writer:** Amy Sherman-Palladino, Daniel Palladino, Kate Fodor, Sheila R. Lawrence, Isaac Oliver - **Cinematography:** M. David Mullen, Alex Nepomniaschy, Éric Moynier, Jeffrey Jur - **Editor:** Tim Streeto, Kate Sanford, Ant Boys, Zana Bochar, Andrew Mondshein, Brian A. Kates - **Music:** Eric Gorfain - **Production design:** Bill Groom - **Producer:** Dhana Rivera Gilbert, Matthew Shapiro, Sal Carino - **Cast:** Rachel Brosnahan as Miriam 'Midge' Maisel; Alex Borstein as Susie Myerson; Michael Zegen as Joel Maisel; Tony Shalhoub as Abe Weissman; Marin Hinkle as Rose Weissman; Kevin Pollak as Moishe Maisel; Caroline Aaron as Shirley Maisel; Reid Scott as Gordon Ford - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA - **Release (the US):** 16 March 2017 - **Genres:** Comedy, Drama - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOmwkTrW4OQ ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: streaming, uhd - Amazon Prime Video: free, uhd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IN, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, TH, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Gilmore Girls* (2000), Fi1m 81: Sherman-Palladino’s earlier fast talkers, in a small town with lower stakes and warmer coffee — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/gilmore-girls.md) - *Hacks* (2021), Fi1m 77: A veteran comic and a young writer despise each other into something like a partnership — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/hacksaw-ridge.md) - *Lenny* (1974): Bob Fosse’s black-and-white Lenny Bruce, the real thing behind Kirby’s version - *Mad Men* (2007): The same decade and city, seen from the offices the Maisel men aspire to - *Funny Girl* (1968): Streisand as a comic who will not be told she is not beautiful --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/the-marvelous-mrs-maisel