Kristen Wiig is a unique talent with not just timing but also bona-fide screen presence. ‘Palm Royale’ makes for a fine showcase.

I am never in over my head,” says Maxine, appalled. “It would be disrespectful to my hairdresser.” In Apple TV+’s sumptuous new comedy Palm Royale, Kristen Wiig plays Maxine Dellacorte-Simmons, a woman who really wants that pesky Simmons bit dropped so that she—a social climber positively dripping with moxie—can take her rightful place, or find her rightful rung, among the posers and pretenders of Palm Beach society. The year is 1969, the clothes are unimaginably florid and the waiters are supercilious.

When served a cocktail in a members-only club, Maxine asks if she should sign for it. “Excuse me?” sneers her waiter, taking care not to mask his scorn. “Did I spill?” shoots back Maxine, trying to hold her own. “In a manner,” sighs the waiter, silencing her while looking pained at this gauche intruder who doesn’t know the ways of their world. For me, Palm Royale is buoyed by these deliciously jagged lines of dialogue and voiceover. The show is not only ostentatious but also Austen-tatious, and the words go down easy as a well-shaken Mai Tai on a scorching day.

That waiter is played by Ricky Martin, ageless and shirtless, looking like an action figure but giving his character much heart. The lavish series, created by Abe Sylvia and based on Juliet Daniel’s novel Mr & Mrs American Pie, is glamorously cast, featuring superlative actors like Laura Dern and Allison Janney and even the great Carol Burnett who, with her character first comatose then incapable of speech, spends most of the 10-episode season bereft of dialogue — which doesn’t get in the way of her ability to get a laugh.