Imagine having a life where everything is perfect, and then one person ruins it all. For Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” this wrecked life is a reality, yet her one escape is standup comedy.  

The show takes place in 1959 New York with a superficial Jewish couple. The husband and part-time comedian Joel Maisel (Michael Zegen) performs his TV-stolen acts at The Gaslight Café in Greenwich Village.  

Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) is a pretentious, uncultured housewife authoring her husband’s career by writing his standup acts. She is the one coming up with funny ideas and coaching her husband to make his act better. Midge gets the content from her everyday life in New York as a housewife. The acts derive from her interactions with her quirky Jewish parents and problems in her marriage.  

Creator Amy Sherman-Palladino (“The Gilmore Girls”) has beautifully constructed the jokes in the standup acts and throughout the episodes. Bringing in Midge’s protected everyday life along with the culture of the period makes you feel like you live in the ‘50s.  

What makes the show so funny is the way Midge has to battle her superficial parents, the norms of the 1950s, being a mother and getting arrested for public obscenity, while paving her way to become a comedienne. Her parents want her to have a “normal” life and marriage, something Midge is fine without.  

The interactions of progressive Midge dealing with her traditional parents creates a hysterical dynamic between the three. Their differences make it funny with insults, passive aggressiveness and uncertainty of how they are going to act after. 

Although the jokes pertain to the period, the writers construct them so the viewer still understands. Even though someone may not know the culture or background of the time, it doesn’t matter because the viewer can still laugh at the punchline. Her act also has some touchy subjects, but Midge performs them so well that controversy is not an issue.  

The most distinctive feature of the show, although an obvious one, is the plot and the concept of starting off with everything and ending up with nothing. Usually, the plots of shows reverse that. Having an upper middle-class main character appeals to a more diverse audience who can relate to the economic class. Midge’s socioeconomic status initially contradicts that of her manager Susie Myerson (Alex Borstein), since she originally was wealthy, and Myerson considerably is less fortunate. Maisel and her manager later end up sharing an economic class.   

Even if comedy shows are not one’s first choice, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” is worth watching. With the many different aspects of drama and mild romance conveyed in the series, it allows the show to be appealing to all.