Aziz Ansari has detailed the creative decisions behind the significant shifts in Master of None Season 3. The Netflix series moved away from his character Dev to center on Lena Waithe's Denise.
Season 3 relegates Dev to a minor role appearing in only two episodes. It instead follows Denise in a storyline inspired by Ingmar Bergman's 1973 miniseries Scenes from a Marriage.
Ansari said he aimed to create television that was "so still and so quiet that it would make people lean in and pay attention." He described an aggressive approach: "Let's do the show again, but take away everything people like about it."
The season also changed from comedy to drama, shifted the setting to rural upstate New York, and used film cameras instead of digital. Ansari noted these ideas sounded "terrible" on paper but were intended to challenge the team.
The changes were not a response to 2018 allegations, according to prior statements. The COVID-19 pandemic also led to scrapping some original Dev-focused plans.
