Mad Men Meets Seinfeld In Prime Video's 5-Part Period Drama Masterpiece

Published Sep 6, 2026, 6:30 PM EDT Ben Sherlock is a Tomatometer-approved film and TV critic who runs the massively underrated YouTube channel I Got Touched at the Cinema. Before working at Screen Rant, Ben wrote for Game Rant, Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop. He's also an indie filmmaker, a standup comedian, and an alumnus of the School of Rock. Ever since Seinfeld became one of the biggest TV juggernauts of the ‘90s, we’ve seen plenty of shows taking a peek behind the curtain at the inner workings of standup comedy. When it found its feet, Seinfeld became a broader social satire deconstructing the unwritten rules of polite society, but Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David initially pitched it as a show about how comedians get their material. The series originally followed an episodic format where the foibles in Jerry’s personal life informed the routines he did on stage at the end. Eventually, Seinfeld abandoned that conceit, but it led to plenty more shows about standup comedy. Plenty of comics followed in Jerry’s footsteps and played themselves in a self-titled sitcom about their life as a comedian: Louis C.K. made Louie, Marc Maron made Maron, John Mulaney made Mulaney, etc. There have been so many Seinfeld knockoffs that any new TV show about a comedian’s life has to do something different to stand out. Louie set itself apart with a John Cassavetes-style realism (and the occasional flash of David Lynch-style surrealism). Crashing set itself apart by going back to the open-mic circuit to show how a successful comic like a Seinfeld or a Mulaney or a Pete Holmes gets to where they are, and the misery they have to endure early in their career. Hacks set itself apart with a queer-coded sapphic love story, and a look at the underrepresented female comics who blazed the trail for women in comedy. Prime Video’s hit dramedy The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel did the same thing as Hacks, spotlighting the uphill struggle for female comedians making a name for themselves in the early days of standup comedy, but it does so in a historical setting. It combines the on-stage laughs of Seinfeld with the late ‘50s/early ‘60s milieu of Mad Men. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Is A Fascinating Look At The Early New York Standup Scene Created by Gilmore Girls’ Amy Sherman-Palladino, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel takes place in New York City in 1958. When her husband Joel, an aspiring comedian, abruptly leaves her after an unsuccessful show at the Gaslight Café, Midge Maisel decides to pursue a career of her own in standup comedy. Encouraged by none other than Lenny Bruce, Midge breaks social norms, brings her own baggage to the stage, and dominates a male-dominated field. It has all the fun of a show like Seinfeld or Hacks or Crashing, where the characters are all comedians and, therefore, really funny. But it also has the historical context of a show like Mad Men or The Americans, where our nostalgia for a bygone era is challenged by a bleak portrayal of its darker underbelly. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel specifically tackled the rampant sexism of the Swinging Sixties. At a time when women had no agency or control over their own lives, Midge is going out and doing her own thing, marching to the beat of her own drum and making a name for herself. Rachel Brosnahan, now best known as Lois Lane from James Gunn’s Superman, gave a star-making turn as Midge, and she was surrounded by a murderers’ row of supporting players. Backing her up, there was Alex Borstein, the voice of Lois Griffin, as well as Monk’s Tony Shalhoub, Two and a Half Men’s Marin Hinkle, legendary character actor Kevin Pollak, and the incomparable Jane Lynch. You couldn’t ask for a better ensemble if a de-aged Jean Smart showed up as young Deborah Vance. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel ran for 43 episodes across five seasons. It’s not the most daunting binge, but there’s still plenty of meat to chew on. You get to spend plenty of time with Midge, immersed in this world of old-timey nightclub comedy.