Aziz Ansari, for those of you recently emerged from your post-Obama-reelection survival bunkers, is a very funny comedian, known mainly as Tom Haverford on NBC’s now defunct Parks and Recreation, as well as approximately 17,000 stand up specials. His new series Master of None, a half hour “dramedy” (Can we replace this term? How about Dram-Com? No, actually, that’s worse) premiered November 6 on Netflix to much acclaim. Taking a page from Louis CK’s groundbreaking FX series Louie, Master of None is a sort-of-autobiographical series, about a guy named Dev (Ansari), a sort–of-working actor in New York who’s sort-of having a hard time. Much like Louie, it abjures the traditional sitcom format. And, again, much like Louie, it’s very funny, but aspires to be something more than just another funny show.
Overall, Master is slicker than Louie: It has hipper music; its cast is better dressed and prettier; its pop culture references are more current. And at times it tries to mimic Louie‘s sense of ennui about the state of things, particularly its star’s own existence. It’s pretty much Millennial Louis, starring a hip, super-famous comedian. And that’s kind of the problem.
Louis CK spent decades in relative obscurity as a comedian and television writer before hitting it big with Louie. The acclaim of his series and his procession of standup specials and major film appearances have made him perhaps the top comedian of the decade, and all at the ripe old age of 48 (136 in comedian years). Ansari, on the other hand, starred in an acclaimed, long-running series, had roles in major films, and reached the top of the standup world as a twenty-something. By the time he arrived at this show, with more than 8 million Twitter followers, a host of viral GIFs from his Parks and Rec days, and years’ worth of stadium shows under his belt, he was already a fully formed brand. Not to say Ansari’s Dev (or Ansari himself) doesn’t have his struggles. They just kind of seem like the struggles of a guy who was rich and famous by the time he was 30.
It may seem nitpicky to prefer the bourgeois struggle of a famous 48 year old to that of a famous 30 year old, but Louie’s angst, for all of its upper-middle-classness, is a prolonged exercise in self-deprecation, and his constant failure to perform even the most basic tasks, like exercising at the gym or asking a woman out, earns the audience’s sympathy for his less relatable failures, like embarrassing Jerry Seinfeld by wearing a t-shirt and jeans to perform at a black-tie fundraiser.
Unlike Louie, Ansari doesn’t make the absurdity of his unrelenting existential confusion the primary joke of the show. He just takes himself too seriously. Dev’s biggest problem is that he spends several weeks acting in a film, only to be crushed at the premiere when he discovers he’s been cut out. As a portrait of solipsism, the show rings as true as it does hollow— and with good reason, since the problems of the young, rich, and famous are, in point of fact, pretty hollow. So when it comes time for Ansari’s dramatic voiceover of a passage from The Bell Jar (yes, that happens), it all kinda seems, I don’t know… ridiculous? Just get over it, man.
Master of None is frequently funny and charming, but Ansari clearly wants this show to be more than that. Unfortunately, he just doesn’t seem to realize that his problems aren’t very problematic. Ultimately it all leaves you wondering, much like Louis himself, what’s the point?
