Aziz Ansari's 'Master of None' on Netflix

This show is so pedantic

His apartment is rad though and I like the girlfriend character

On episode 3. Thought the Parents episode was sweet, but felt very Filmmaker 101 - stiff acting and poor direction. The first and third episodes were way better (maybe because Aziz didn't direct them?).

Looking forward to the lynn shelton directed one

the acting is def not good in this - i wouldnt have cast the parents, though i loved them anyway, and the dad isnt bad at comic delivery! - and that includes aziz, who cant seem to break out of his usual persona. his co-stars arent great, but they all seem to get better as it goes on. aziz is better as a writer on the whole. weirdly i thought his acting was better when hes auditioning and in the virus movie than when being dev...

funny how the mindy show doesnt get mentioned in his NYT piece.

if the ep with Dez taking out Rachel's grandmother had been an episode of Louie she would have either a) died

Yeah it was such a fucking relief that she didn't die. Damn Louie...

Agree it got more 'Girls but where you keep liking everyone" without getting smug or boring tho (yet).

I just watched the Ladies & Gentlemen episode, and now I am a fan of Condola Rashad.

what have i become
my empire of 'gurt

watched the first 3 episodes. this is a cute and p earnest show, humorous but not really full of belly-laughs. dude playing his friend brian isn't too great an actor. aziz himself is a little limited but not to the extent that it's damaging to the show. decent tv.

I watched a few episodes of this; it was enjoyable, not life-changing, and I don't know if I'm going to go back to finish it.

I will say though that the way the friend group interacts with each other rings very, very true to me and I don't get the complaints about the acting as a result. I do agree that the parents are very stilted but it works with the relationships so... eh.

After watching months of Bobs Burgers I can't deal with H Jon Benjamin talking. All I can think is 'THAT'S NOT YOUR VOICE!!!!!'

Thought that was quite good. Seems like Dev being an actor just an excuse to make a bunch of Go-Gurt and Sickening jokes, but a lot of the latter are pretty funny as is Colin Salmon so forgiven. Comparisons to Girls/Louis don't hold up to me as everyone is fairly likeable and sympathetic here.

i loved the halloween/don't worry be happy walk home. that was great.

My wife started watching this and I caught #2 and #3 last night. I've never really seen anything Ansari has been in and really know nothing about him but I kind of enjoyed it, especially his parents. A couple of my good friends thorough elementary and high school were Indian, and it's shocking how much his parents remind me of theirs - the dads were always sort of happy and goofy and making jokes (my friend Ravi's dad learned english by watching shitloads of 70s TV so he was always using catchphrases like "DYN-O-MITE" and laughing about it) while their moms were relatively dire, humorless and put-upon.

Also I had no idea who Eric Warehiem is (though I've heard the phrase "Tim and Eric" before) but man did I hate that guy. I don't know if it's his shtick or what but he seems like a vague hipster version of Guy Fieiri with all his "YO KICKING DOPE OFF THE HOOK SLANG" bullshit that felt horrifyingly grating.

Tim and Eric are a scourge on comedy culture.

eric wareheim in this show doesn't resemble his tim and eric stuff at all. it's like making a judgment on willie nelson's early 1960s songs based on his latest reggae album

(i agree that eric wareheim's character in this show is annoying as fuck though)

I like eric wareheim's character's built in bookcases made of what looked like salvaged wood

Heidecker is a brilliant actor - Wareheim not so much

i liked him in the grandpa/grandma episode. that's kinda my fave episode so far along with the citizen's arrest episode.

was underwhelmed by the first episode, decided to give it another shot and am glad that i did. the 'indians on tv' episode lives up to the hype.

this show is finely balanced between cloying and wearying

Heidecker is a brilliant actor - Wareheim not so much

― the naive cockney chorus (Simon H.), Saturday, November 14, 2015 1:15 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Agreed, but I almost felt like Eric wasn't taking this show seriously, himself. Like he was making sure he kept any sincerity at arms length.

That being said, throughout their career together Tim was always better at selling a character and Eric would always settle into the same schtick.

Dev's friends are not good actors. I don't think aziz is too bad. The dude is like an echo of 90s Comedy Central culture and the woman's lines are delivered so mechanically it's like she hasn't bothered to process what they mean

I like the Claire Danes ep, Indians on tv ep, and parents ep the most (have to see last 2 episodes yet tho)

Aziz himself is mostly ok, but its so thin and the characters so wooden

(the last 2 episodes were the worst ones, especially the penultimate)

the lesbian friend has shockingly poor delivery.

"their moms were relatively dire, humorless and put-upon."

way to generalise.

Agreed, but I almost felt like Eric wasn't taking this show seriously, himself. Like he was making sure he kept any sincerity at arms length.

he also directed a bunch of episodes btw.

(but i agree it felt like his character was from a different show sometimes)

Sorry, to clarify I meant he wasn't specifically taking the performance seriously. His directing is always pretty good!

"their moms were relatively dire, humorless and put-upon."

way to generalise.

Not trying to generalize here, just observing based on the three Indian dads and two moms (one of the families was an Indian father and American mother) that I knew well though my childhood.

The dads all had similar senses of humor, were often making puns and playing pranks and goofing around, generally let their sons do what they wanted, etc. The mothers were both much more strict and formal, were always the parent to tell my friends they weren't allowd do certain things, would call my mom in a panic if they knew were out together and it was a minute past curfew, and were perpetually cleaning and cooking for the households - one of my friends would actually bring both his laundry AND dirty dishes with him when he traveled 500 miles home from college for his mother to do for him.

The dynamic of Ansari's mother and father in the Parents episode reminded me very much of this, especially her "I just sat on the couch and cried" line.

find this a really likeable show that in a few episodes explores really interesting themes (thought Indians on television episode was p great) but the acting is really bad - Claire Danes episode really showed this because her and dude playing her husband really stood out as being actual actors - , and the writing is not quite there at times, as in maybe be a little more time could've been spent on certain lines/scenes - not sure who is involved in the writing room here though I think some parks and rec folks were involved and I suppose I had that issue with that show too.

these complaints don't really mar the show for me, enjoying it and not sitting there on the couch tutting each time there's a wooden line reading or anything, it just seems a shame that I feel like there was the potential for this to be great and it isn't quite there for me.

flavorpill's link bait headline read "the real analogue to master of none is not girls but sex in the city" and that should keep me from watching this for a while longer.

everyone here otm. flavorpill isn't.

that sex in the city analogy is weird. I guess they're both set in NYC and have single people?

great now I can't help seeing "is Master of None really the new Sex in the City?" being typed out on Carrie's laptop

Aziz is such a Miranda.

"wow, I love this!" / Nashville episode / "oh, I hate this"

I wish people would stop thinking couples arguing with each other is a good idea for a TV show.

We've seen the first two eps, and his parents (however cute) are such terrible actors (especially his mom) that my wife could barely take it, though I sort of appreciated it in an endearing B&W low budget indie sort of way. Thank goodness this show is now B&W, btw..

they are terrible, yes. not sure who ISNT a middling actor in this show though. aziz isnt esp good himself, never mind anyone else!

still love it though, ha. hope it comes back soon.

https://twitter.com/AkilahObviously/status/677560296433704960

^that was published in The New Yorker (iirc) before Master of None debuted, and I read it mostly as a rip on Curb Your Enthusiasm, but Master of None definitely fits

you almost gotta think Aziz threw in the kid's birthday party with the bouncy house on purpose after reading this, no? that just seems too crazily specific to be coincidental.

Did he throw away any funny lines from the script on purpose too?

That bugged me, nobody has a bounce house for a first birthday party. Made it seem like nobody who had kids was in the writer's room.

i thought this show was good! maybe not great, but good, very watchable. thought there would be at least one episode that really delivered in terms of hilariousness, which didn't really happen, but that is ok.

ansari's character doesn't strike me as super unhappy. there's also plenty of joke jokes in this, it's way more sitcommy than louie (to it's benefit and detriment). the acting isn't great but i didn't really mind (plenty of ppl irl are bad actors), his dad was a charming enough ham to get past that for me. was mainly happy to see noel wells get another shot and do well w/ it after snl. as netflix shows go i'm never gonna name it as their best (whereas i can think of like four others that i might) but it was profoundly better than i thought an aziz ansari starring vehicle would be.

this show tried to be 3 or 4 shows in the course of 10 episodes and i probably ended up liking about half of it. whoever upthread noted that the episode w/danes and emmerich stood out because they're actual actors was right on--between them and the fact that it was probably the most conventionally plotted that was my fav episode. the season got pretty bad by the end, i thought the relationship stuff was about as facile as it gets.

I didn't even finish an episode of this. In the opening scene, my main thought was "they don't seem very drunk, how did he convince her to have sex with him?"