20 Best TV Shows Of 2018

9. The Marvelous Mrs Maisel

Amy Sherman-Palladino has taken almost everything great about Gilmore Girls and transported it to The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, except now she also has the budget to match her directorial ambitions - and that doesn't just apply to how much must be spent on the costumes for each season.

Season 2 continues Midge's fledgeling career as a stand-up, while dealing with her less-than-perfect home life too. There's a LOT of fast-talking, some brilliant family dynamics played for both emotional heft and major laughs, and a couple of stunning set-pieces that showcase ASP's love of the theatrical.

At its heart, though, is a great story about Mrs Maisel's attempts to make it in a male-dominated world. The show is never better than when it stands Rachel Brosnahan on a stage and lets her bring the house down. The dialogue is incomparable, and Brosnahan - whose performance flips from charming to fierce to vulnerable and back again at will - delivers it perfectly, but also receives great support from the likes of Tony Shalhoub, Marin Hinkle, and Alex Borstein. A show about stand-up comedy needs to be funny. This is consistently so, but what's more remarkable is how it achieves that while being so heartfelt and honest, expertly capturing a very specific sense of place, and being wonderful to simply look at.

Mrs Maisel? More like Mrs Bae-sel!