Production is currently ongoing of the next season of the Emmy-winning comedy, which will be the show’s last, meaning fans have approximately 16 more episodes to go before they say goodbye to Midge (played by Rachel Brosnahan) and the rest of the cast.
Brosnahan also announced that the show was ending, writing on her Instagram: “A few days ago we started shooting Season 5 (!) of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It’s bittersweet. The band is back together again and we can’t wait to share season 4 with you starting tomorrow…it’s also going to be our last rodeo. Rest assured our t*** are up and it’s going to be a hell of a final chapter. Stay tuned.”
Why is The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel ending?
The show’s creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, meanwhile, told TVLine: “We don’t want to overstay our welcome. Midge has a journey she has to take. It’s the struggle that is fun [as opposed to] ‘I’m sitting in a penthouse and I’m really rich and I’ve got a lot of chihuahuas.’ We know emotionally where we want to end her and at what point we want to cut it off, we just don’t know how many episodes it’s going to take to get there.”
The series seems to be coming to an organic end—after all, five seasons is a pretty impressive run for a streaming show, the vast majority of which bow out at Season 3 or earlier.
As Netflix once revealed in an investors’ call, the average streaming show ends after Season 3 because at that point, it stops attracting as many new subscribers (the key metric for streaming services). Which makes sense—how many of us had wanted to start a new show, only to be daunted by the four or five seasons we have to catch up on?
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 4 trailer gives us some hints about why the streamer or the showrunner thought the time was right to end the show. In the promo, we see Midge declare to Susie (Alex Borstein) that she no longer wants to be a support act, she wants to be a headliner—and once she achieves that, there is not much further her career in comedy can go, much as fans may enjoy watching her become a talk show host or a movie star.
“The dozens of awards cement Maisel’s legacy in many ways, but what’s even more enduring and poignant are the characters Amy created and the joyous, brilliant, singular world she and Dan brought to life. This series has meant so much to Prime Video and the effects of its success will be felt long after its final season. I can’t wait for fans and our worldwide Prime Video audience to savor each moment as we embark on the culmination of this groundbreaking and unforgettable series.”
The showrunners declined further comment on why the show was set to end after Season 5.
