One more marvelous season

By now, TV viewers might decide that only the good die young.
This spring, some of the best shows are leaving voluntarily. HBO’s “Succession” will depart after just 39 episodes; PBS’ “Sanditon” will leave after 20. “Alice,” alas, had 192.
Now let’s add one more to the list: “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (shown here) is starting its fifth and final season on Amazon Prime. It has three episodes April 14, then adds one each Friday, through May 26.
That will make 43 episodes in five seasons. We would have preferred 143, but great shows obsess on quality; bad ones just keep puttering along.
And “Mrs. Maisel” is a great one, which this final season reminds us. (We’ve seen he first eight episodes, but not the finale.) It has some big plot twists, plus the usual crackling-sharp dialog.
The plot began in the 1950s (providing some delightful visuals), when Midge (Rachel Brosnahan), a switchboard operator, discovered she had a talent for stand-up comedy. That was virtually an all-male field back then. Her parents (Tony Shalhoub and Marin Hinkle) were skeptical; her then-husband Joel (Michael Zegen) floundered with his own stand-up act, then started a nightclub
The one person pushing Midge was her manager Susie (the superb Alex Borstein, shown here with Brosnahan in a previous season), who didn’t have much choice: For quite a while, Midge was her only client.
Midge soared for a while, then sagged after a verbal mistake. As this final season starts, she’s trudging in Thanksgiving-time despair, feeling defeated and depleted. Susie has to do something quickly.
She focusest on a late-night talk show, with one hurdle: The show’s talent-booker – played by Jason Ralph (Brosnahan’s husband in real life) hates Susie.
This season is wonderful in its first episode and the ones near the end. It sags a bit in the middle, when Midge has a steady workplace – but a “Mrs. Maisel” sag is like the best moments for most shows.
There’s that turbo-drive dialog that writer-producer Amy Sherman-Palladino is known for. She’s been writing this way since “Gilmore Girls,” two decades ago, but now she has the perfect setting for it, with all the right characters.
Watch Shalhoub after his character commits the unforgivable – mis-spelling Carol Channing’s name. Or Zegen, when Joel’s new wife delivers rough news.
Or watch the first few minutes of the opener. I’m not a fan of most of the flashforwards, but the one with an adult Esther on hypodrive is a delight.
And, of course, watch anything with Bernstein as Susie. Late in the final season, she gets a tribute night – a roast, actually – that manages to be very funny while having rich layers of emotion.
“Mrs. Maisel” is like that, a terrific series in every way. So, of course, it’s dying young.