Friday Finds shares a piece of content I’ve recently discovered on broadcast, cable, or streaming TV.
Today’s find: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Genre: Hour dramedy
Origin: Amazon Studios
Find it on: Amazon Prime, seasons 1 (8x)
I’ll admit this isn’t much of a rare “find,” considering the wide coverage of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel‘s full-season release this week on Amazon Prime. Ever since falling in love with the pilot episode on Amazon last March, I’ve been waiting to see how the series would turn out once it got the green light. Based on the first few episodes, I can say The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel carries on the potential seen in the pilot.
The brief logline for Maisel is that it follows the adventures of a housewife-turned-comedienne in the late 1950s/early 1960s – think a Mad Men aesthetic mashed up with a mythical version of a Joan Rivers/Phyllis Diller origin story. The eponymous Miriam “Midge” Maisel (played by Rachel Brosnahan) is the engaging lead. Supporting cast includes her parents (played by the always-enjoyable Tony Shalhoub and Marin Hinkle), manager Susie (Alex Borstein), and Lenny Bruce (Luke Kirby).
Set design and costuming is of a high quality, recalling Mad Men‘s similar dedication and, at least for me, providing a rich backdrop for the story. Some anachronisms inevitably sneak in as period characters occasionally are attributed today’s attitudes but none so outlandish to suspend belief.
Given that Midge tries to out-“blue” Lenny Bruce at some points, the series is not for the whole family, or at least not without some supervision. Give it a sample or a binge this weekend!
David Tice is the principal of TiceVision LLC, a media research consultancy.
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