My Mood For The Day: I really need to eliminate this part of the template because it always make me sound like a lazy good-for-nothing human, but here we are again: I was sick. I wanted to lay in bed. It snowed the night before thus putting a damper on fun things I might’ve otherwise done.

What I Watched: Netflix’s Master of None (S2:E5-S2:E8) and Amazon’s Mozart in the Jungle (S2:E8-S2:E10)

What IMDb says: The personal and professional life of Dev, a 30-year-old actor in New York. (Master of None) 

My Thoughts On What I Watched: When it comes to Master of None, I feel like this show can read my damn mind. After two episodes, I was discontent with how they didn’t tackle tough topics, so episode 3 delivered that. Around episode 5, I started to think about how this season was maybe a little too wrapped around Dev’s romantic life and not putting enough focus on his career ambitions. Well, ask and ye shall receive.

Of today’s three episodes, only one really focused on Dev and it centered on an offer to keep his current job for the next three Episode 6 barely features Dev at all but instead features three shorts about various never-seen-before characters. It’s an unorthodox move, but one that totally works. Each short is engaging enough that you don’t even miss Dev, and as mentioned before, I love how Master of None isn’t afraid to be experimental. In Episode 7, Dev is forced to make a choice between keeping his current Clash of the Cupcakes gig for another seven seasons or saying no and going back to the drawing board. It was a welcome change from first dates and sexual tension between him and the Italian chick. In Episode 8 the script was flipped and Dev got to be the sidekick while his friend Denise struggled with being gay at

One of the beautiful things about Master of None is how it finds ways to explore the struggles of different people other than the main protagonist. One of the characters of Episode 6 is deaf; Denise is a black lesbian; There’s a wide variety of perspectives represented and it’s clear that this is about more than just Aziz Ansari’s ego.

In terms of Mozart in the Jungle, I’m not gonna lie, Season 2 is probably my least favorite of the three seasons. We really don’t get a ton of one-on-one interaction between Hailey and Rodrigo in today’s episodes, which in my mind makes them some of the weaker episodes.

My Thoughts On Streaming in General: Streaming is wonderful and all, but can’t we just let half-hourish shows be a half-hourish and hourish shows be an hourish?? I was all ready to finish Master of None but it turns out Episode 9 is 57 minutes long. I did not sign on for that.

In the streaming world it’s so easy to be pumped and ready for a new episode and suddenly change your mind for an arbitrary reason. All your content is on demand, but that also means that the pause button is too. The moment you realize something isn’t what you want it to be, in this case the episode was too long, you’re immediately reminded that there are infinite possibilities within a few clicks.