Should You Let Master Of None Rule Ten Half-Hours Of Your Life?

What Is This Thing?

New York-based actor Dev tries to nurture his acting career, be a good son to his immigrant dad, and figure out his love life, sometimes with the assistance of his unhelpful, equally single friends who also date women (two of whom are guys, and one of whom is a woman).

When Is It On?

Whenever you want, as soon as it drops on Netflix, which it will do at midnight on Friday, November 6.

Why Was It Made Now?

Comedy performer Aziz Ansari has starred in several very successful stand-up specials on Netflix, and co-authored a dating book with a sociologist. Making a dating sitcom for Netflix seems logical -- particularly since he's now no longer busy at Parks & Recreation.

What's Its Pedigree?

The aforementioned Ansari, who plays Dev, co-created the show with Alan Yang, formerly a writer on Parks & Recreation; the story for the third episode is credited to the late Parks writer Harris Wittels. Former SNL star Noel Wells plays Rachel, Dev's love interest (#ItsComplicated!) who comes in and out through the season. Aziz's male buddies Arnold and Brian are played by Eric Wareheim (Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!) and Kelvin Yu (a writer on Bob's Burgers); guest stars in the first few episodes include Cady Huffman (Broadway), H. Jon Benjamin (Archer), Ravi Patel (Grandfathered), Danielle Brooks (Orange Is The New Black), Nina Arianda (also Broadway) -- and, in a casting move that's gotten a lot of buzz, Yu's and Ansari's characters' parents are played by their real parents.

...And?

Of the episodes I saw, the best was "Parents," in which the audience sees flashbacks to the difficult experiences Dev's and Brian's dads had as first-generation immigrants to the U.S., juxtaposed with their callow sons' easy lives in the present, blowing off spending time with their fathers to see the latest X-Men movie together. Brian and Dev end up feeling guilty about ignoring their dads and get the whole crew together for a bridge-building dinner, after which the dads can't wait to do it again the very next night. "We can't have dinner with them again!" yelps Dev, reading his texts. "I'm not trying to hang out with Peter Cheng on the regs!," which is both (a) a great line and (b) an accurate representation of how I feel about hanging out with other people's parents.

...But?

"I'm not trying to hang out with Peter Cheng" was the first thing that made me laugh until "Indians On TV," the fourth episode, in which Brooks shows up as Dev's agent, screaming at him not to make an issue of a sitcom producer's racist email he was accidentally cc-ed on because she doesn't want to lose out on the "Friends money" she'll get if Dev gets cast on a show that ends up being a hit. But the rest...wow, not for me!

Granted, I haven't been that entertained by Ansari's stand-up, and generally considered his Tom the weakest character on Parks -- but still, given the rapturous reviews I've seen from people I know and respect, my expectations were high, and were punctured in the cold open of the series premiere, "Plan B." Opening with a sex scene feels like a try-hard move, and while I get that the discussion of whether you can get pregnant from pre-cum is supposed to be cheeky and let the audience know it's an adult show, eh. By the time it got to the extremely 2015 exchange about the difference between UberX and Uber Black, I was pretty sure this was a show for young people, and that there was going to be stuff in it that would be funny for people who are in their twenties and dating with smartphones and other shit I wouldn't find relatable.

I mean, maybe that's why it didn't make me laugh -- because I've been married for one thousand years? Because I've been out of the dating pool since my first-ever email address was only a year old? But it definitely didn't make me laugh, and that is kind of the baseline qualification for me to get on board with a sitcom. I know the trend now is for even half-hour shows to be "smart," which is code for "short on jokes," like Togetherness (which I like) or Girls or Louie (which I don't). But You're The Worst manages to be insightful and thought-provoking even on the subject of depression itself while also being really funny. Master Of None feels like another Girls in that it's exploring essay questions without injecting them with very much actual comedy.

And oh god, my patience for amateur actors is so low that even "Parents" grates. Casting your real parents is a cute idea, but actual actors do exist and won't grind things to a halt trying to deliver dialogue because they're really internists.

...So?

Or maybe that's just what I and your grandmother think? I honestly don't know. I can't really do better here than to quote my dear friend and colleague Joe Reid: "Wanting comedies to be funny doesn't make me dumb." Maybe all the super-great episodes are 5-10? But the first four were not so entertaining to me that I am ever likely to find out.