Master of None

Master of None is a series in which racial, ethnic and gender prejudices do not make up the central theme, but are a natural part of the lives of characters representing different minorities. It is primarily a series about the lives of indecisive big-city millennials who have too many possibilities to make their lives more pleasant and the pitfalls of modern dating, and only secondarily a statement on the lives of people who otherwise remain ignored or misunderstood. It keeps a greater distance from its protagonist than shows like Girls and Louie do and more extensively takes the social and cultural context into account. At the same time, it is a series characterised by greater formalistic playfulness and visual elegance, especially in the second season. In the more divergent second set of ten episodes, on the other hand, the very generous approach to the characters takes a toll in the form of the slapdash characterisation of Francesca, which matches the archetype of the manic pixie dream girl. Because of that, the episodes based exclusively on the coming together of the central couple are not very convincing; take, for example, the penultimate hour-long episode, which is obviously supposed to recall Antonioni’s study of estrangement, but it comes across as empty, false and forced in comparison with the rest of the series. However, the advantage of Master of None is that each episode approaches a particular topic from different points of view and works as a stand-alone short film. The individual episodes are thus very diverse and always surprising in some way, though not always in a positive sense. 80% (23.07.2017)