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Comedian Aziz Ansari is growing up.

Yes, his new stand-up special Buried Alive finds the comic at the ripe old age of 30 (!), and his interests appear to be changing. He's still energetic and excitable, shouting his punchlines and bugging his eyes as he always has. But on his third and latest comedy special, Ansari's focus has shifted away from stories about celebrity run-ins at parties and harassing his adolescent cousin and more towards human behavior -- it's a long way from Randy in Funny People.


He has become fascinated by how relationships work. More than that, he has become fascinated by how grown ups work. Perhaps he's finally willing to become one.

Though he never mentions growing up directly, it's all over the subtext of Buried Alive. Ansari is no longer interested in being the clown at the party, anxious to dish on all the stories as soon as he leaves. He approaches this new special like an anthropologist studying the modern adult -- how they have meet, fall in love, how they function in relationships and manage to have children and raise families. He is not yet a participant in any of it, just an outside observer amazed at how any of it works.

Ansari is hardly the first comic to tackle such subjects. But there's something that feels fresh and new about the way he approaches this material; the laughs are not mean spirited, but instead come from a genuine curiosity, as though we're watching as he learns about life in real time. But his questions are also interesting, not just stupid rhetorical ones, and ones that don't feel tired and old.

Maybe that's because people sending photos of their genitals is a fairly recent phenomenon, so polling the audience about it hasn't yet had the chance to feel hacky.

The weakest stuff in Buried Alive is the brief encore Ansari performs after his set proper has ended. It's a story about the pop star Seal, and it trades in name-dropping and obvious pop culture references. The real reason the bit disappoints, though, is because it feels more like Ansari's old stuff than anything else in the special. It's a step backwards, and Buried Alive is otherwise about moving forward.

He's a genuinely modern comedian, able to incorporate references to social media, pop culture and technology effortlessly into his routines. Unlike a lot of other comics who are either bewildered by these things or pander by doing entire bits on them, Ansari just absorbs them into his life like every other person in his generation. It's why he has such a connection with his audience and why they have embraced him more than almost any other young comic -- because he thinks and talks like they do and they know it. It's not fake.

Buried Alive is the third excellent comedy special in a row for Ansari, who continues to experiment with distribution models. His first stand-up special, 2010's Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening, debuted on Comedy Central; his second, Dangerously Delicious, was made available as a direct download via his website. He's changed things up yet again for Buried Alive, which is his first special to premiere on Netflix Instant video. It's a smart move, as Netflix continues to eclipse just about every other pay service. Comics used to premiere specials on HBO. Netflix has become the new HBO (in the same month that Ansari's special debuted, comics like Marc Maron and Tom Papa also premiered specials on Netflix). So while Ansari continues to break ground with getting his stuff out there, his comedy continues to grow and mature. He's become one of the most relevant comedians working today. Did anyone see that coming?