SHE’S A STAND-UP GAL: John Podhoretz on the nostalgic marvels of Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. 

On religiously Jewish matters, Sherman-Palladino makes dozens of stupid errors large and small, which usually ruins things like this for me. But on culturally Jewish matters, she’s letter perfect.

And the show is anchored by one of the best small-screen comic female performances I’ve ever seen. How Rachel Brosnahan, a 26-year-old Gentile from the Chicago suburbs best known for playing a hooker on House of Cards, came to embody an educated, midcentury Upper West Sider in voice, accent, word, and gait with such eerie perfection—I’ve known Miriam Maisels all my life, and she’s all of them rolled into one—is a thrilling mystery. Amy Sherman-Palladino wrote Rachel Brosnahan the part of a lifetime, and Brosnahan returned the favor by making The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel an unending delight. I want to live inside the show. I suspect you will too.

Between Mrs. Maisel, the Grand Tour (their megabucks reboot of the BBC’s Top Gear car show), and the Man in the High Castle, Amazon is making some extremely high quality television — even if they apparently don’t make money on it directly.