The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Creator Blames The Rings of Power for Show’s Sudden Ending

Another great series has come to an end. In a week full of endings, such as The Flash’s and Succession’s, Prime Video said goodbye to one of its most popular stories, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Released in 2017 and created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, the series proved to be one of the great jewels on the streaming platform, performing wonderfully at award seasons and positioning itself as one of the most acclaimed comedies of recent years along with Barry or Ted Lasso. For this reason, it was a real surprise for the fans when, months ago, it was confirmed that the fifth installment of the show would be the last.

Earlier this week the final episode of the series aired, which was as celebrated as all the previous ones. However, it seems that it was not the outcome that Sherman-Palladino wanted to present. In an interview on WTF with Marc Maron, the writer-producer-director revealed that the sudden end of the series has to do with the priorities of the streaming service, and other expensive series that they have to pay for:

“It wasn’t me. But things come to an end. I understand. But you know, there’s orcs to pay for. There’s a lot of orcs running around. They gotta pay the orcs. Maisel was a very expensive show by the end. All those bells and whistles. Doing period shows are very expensive. It’s not just—it’s not just the cars and the dresses and the sets. It’s all the work afterwards, taking out all the modern stuff. The special effects are special. You wouldn’t think we were special effects when we got no dragons. We looked at the fifth season and like–’okay, let’s land the plane.’ Because halfway through the season, people started saying: ‘well, I mean, what about a reboot?’ I’m like, ‘oh, my god, just let me land the plane.’ Let me make sure that if people liked the show, and if people watched the show, at the end, they feel like their journey was closed. That was very important to me”.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Other Victims of the Streaming Crisis

Despite the good reception that The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel had, there is no doubt that today companies choose the big franchises, such as Lord of the Rings, as part of the most important projects for them. The Rings of Power is the most expensive series in television history, and Amazon Prime Video invested heavily in its production, so it’s definitely a priority.

But the show starring Rachel Brosnahan is not the only one left behind because of the money that needs to be invested in productions like The Rings of Power. Recently, Prime Video has joined Netflix, Max and some other streaming services on the trend of canceling many series to reduce costs.

A League of Their Own, another period drama was also suddenly renewed for a final season, which will also have a shorter amount of episodes and will only serve to close the plots that have not been resolved in the first installment.

Another great example is the sci-fi comic book based Paper Girls, which ran for only one season and was canceled. Carnival Row and Hunters, two highly expensive shows that were pretty successful when they premiered back in 2019 and 2020, were also cut off pretty quickly after just two seasons each, ending this same year.