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How much do you hate Marvelous Mrs Maisel thread

Started by Dex Sawash, December 06, 2018, 04:47:39 PM

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Dex Sawash

I hate it about 7.

I want to like it, it looks great, sets and props are fabulous but it comes up way short of watchable for me.
Am I broken?

BlodwynPig


Dex Sawash

Amazon period comedy. Young NY Jewish mother of 2 dumps husband for standup comedy.

Replies From View


CaledonianGonzo

I don't hate it. At least, not the first season.  It's not without its flaws - mainly the whenever it's focussed on the supporting cast rather than Midge - but on the whole I find it a sharp and likable recreation of an era.

wooders1978

Quote from: Dex Sawash on December 06, 2018, 06:16:18 PM
Amazon period comedy. Young NY Jewish mother of 2 dumps husband for standup comedy.

God that's sounds absolutely *wank*

CaledonianGonzo

Not really accurate though. She takes up stand up after her husband dumps her.

Gulftastic

Her husband is trying to be a stand up, and she is supporting him, until she finds out he is a hack stealing other peoples' routines and that he is cheating on her. She had always been a wit, and in a bit of drunken anger, she gets up on stage at an open mike and starts talking. Her talent is spotted, and her career as a stand up begins. I love the show, and can't wait to watch season2.

CaledonianGonzo

Given the setting it's a good companion piece to Inside Llewyn Davis, although with more of a focus on stand up than folk music.

I'd also give a thumbs up to the soundtrack.

https://open.spotify.com/user/pyephyoaung/playlist/7jOstWFIVUWIZlaTCm1UKc?si=7yDH0y-bQDeHoidoDDmBGA

choie

Oh my God, I hate it SO MUCH. I hate it even more because I expected it to be incredible, the way everyone I know adores it.  I'm Jewish, my 1st-generation parents lived in NYC during this era, I like comedy, I miss Mad Men and this seemed like it should have the same sort of almost-nostalgia-but-actually-stuff-was-kinda-shitty-for-a-lot-of-people.  I wanted to love it.

But I hate Midge with an intensity I was shocked to discover. She is a narcissistic bore who IS NOT EVEN FUCKING FUNNY.  It reminds me of Studio 60..., where we were always told the sketches were incisive and brilliant and oh-so-important because everything Aaron Sorkin's characters do is oh-so-important, but what we actually saw of them were hacky shit. (Versus 30 Rock, where the whole point is that the show sucks, and they kinda know it.) 

Here, Midge and her little tiny Linda Hunt-esque agent (why??) are just vulgar, in a way that people just were not that vulgar back then. I know this cultural history too well. People didn't speak like they do. I can't even be arsed to remember Midge-actress's name, but she's overblown and has created a caricature and is generally immensely punchable.

Production values are great, solid supporting cast (unlike others I'm a much bigger fan of the family scenes than any time Midge is the focus). I mean could you have a bigger sign of a Mary Sue than when the writers insert the character of Lenny fucking Bruce into the show to prop up their lead by having him instantly, and I mean instantly, fall for Midge's drunken insights and hilarity and beauty and honesty and bravery and ugh.

So, yeah. Not a fan.

CaledonianGonzo

She's clearly a flawed character, though.  She's deliberately depicted as a bad mother who lives in a bubble of absurd privilege and coasts through life on a combination of luck and good looks.  I'm not sure how much you're meant to like her.

I agree that the stand up routines aren't especially rib-tickling, but I dunno if that's much of an issue.  They're not that dominant in the grand scheme of the show.

Brundle-Fly

It's always really hard to represent good stand up comedy in dramas about stand up comedy. The only one IMO that succeeded is Billy Crystal's Mr Saturday Night (1992) but mainly because he delivers great one liner gags rather than observational material. And Buddy is played by someone who was an experienced stand up comedian.

This TV show sounds like a mardier version of Punchline (1988). The one with Tom Hanks and Sally Field.

MuteBanana

Gave this a go last night funnily enough. First episode first series. I spent most of it looking up what a 'black and white' was.

It's a cookie. For fucksake.

Dex Sawash

Quote from: MuteBanana on December 06, 2018, 10:59:07 PM
Gave this a go last night funnily enough. First episode first series. I spent most of it looking up what a 'black and white' was.

It's a cookie. For fucksake.

I bet it was referring to a Police car.

MuteBanana


Mr Faineant

It's crap. A show about an amazingly naturally funny new comedian who doesn't have a single funny line. Hogwash and pap.

CaledonianGonzo

I can't really understand getting hung up on that aspect of it.  By the end of the first season she's still playing the NYC equivalent of the Invisible Dot and the audience are getting most of their entertainment from the disconnect between the relatively filthy material and the person doing it.

The Bob Newhart telephone routine that's used in the first episode - and that obviously killed circa 1958 - doesn't exactly bring down the house these days either.

https://youtu.be/F0s7lJ-NRVw

Mr Faineant

I'm not hung up, I just think it's crap, that's all.

Quote from: choie on December 06, 2018, 09:16:05 PM
Here, Midge and her little tiny Linda Hunt-esque agent (why??) are just vulgar, in a way that people just were not that vulgar back then. I know this cultural history too well. People didn't speak like they do. I can't even be arsed to remember Midge-actress's name, but she's overblown and has created a caricature and is generally immensely punchable.

I haven't seen the show, but isn't the main character basically a Joan Rivers type figure? I imagine people could get pretty vulgar back then in NYC.

kngen

Quote from: Pearly-Dewdrops Drops on December 08, 2018, 12:41:40 AM
I haven't seen the show, but isn't the main character basically a Joan Rivers type figure? I imagine people could get pretty vulgar back then in NYC.

Quote from: Dorothy ParkerTell him I was too fucking busy - or vice versa.

Dex Sawash

#20
Wife loves it, last night I couldn't avoid starting second series any longer. I fell asleep about 20 minutes in and wife is mad now. May never have to watch again.

It still looks great. It seems sort of like a stage play somehow, just a bit awkward. The acting is mostly ok, it just isn't very funny.
Mrs Maisel gets her titulars out in S01 E01 IIRC.



edit- should've gone with "titular character gets her maisels out" . Shambles


kalowski

I don't hate it, it's mediocre. The actress playing Mrs Maisel is stunningly beautiful and plays very cool. Mrs Kalowski loves it.

I was annoyed when one character used the phrase "quantum leap". Google ngrams suggests the phrase was not being used for a good six years.

Panbaams

Slight bump, we just finished the first season of this.

The parents are great. (I'd prefer a show about them.) The husband's parents are pretty good. I quite like the agent. The ex-husband's a drip. I really don't like the lead character, who smarms her way through the show, capped off with some unfunny stand up sections. In the show, sometimes her stand up goes down a storm and sometimes it bombs, but it's always rubbish. If you were to transcribe both and give them to someone cold, they couldn't tell which was which.

Quote from: kalowski on December 19, 2018, 09:05:46 PM
I was annoyed when one character used the phrase "quantum leap". Google ngrams suggests the phrase was not being used for a good six years.

There's at least one bum note in every episode where some modernism has been carelessly included. In one of the later episodes they're preparing for a children's party and one of the characters says they were trying to make gender-neutral party bags.

Twed


poodlefaker

Wife likes, I hate. It's a musical without songs. Inclusion of Lenny Bruce especially egregious.