So many stand-up specials are released these days that it’s easy to miss how radically the art form has evolved.

Part of the reason Ali Wong’s “Hard Knock Wife” and Hannah Gadsby’s “Nanette” have made such an impact is that they were thematically and structurally coherent, their jokes integrated into the special the way scenes fit into the plot of a play. The status and ambition of the specials’ directors have also grown, shifting from craftsmen for hire to stylists to the auteur Bo Burnham, whose distinctive work with Jerrod Carmichael and Chris Rock reveals editing and camerawork in dialogue with setups and punch lines.

And this week represents another shift as Netflix releases the first half of “The Comedy Lineup,” eight bite-sized specials that run for 15 minutes each (the second batch arrives in early fall), a common allotment of time for a club set but not for televised stand-up. Most specials have traditionally been about an hour or a half-hour, with late-night TV sets running around five minutes, but the flexibility of the internet has destroyed the idea of a standard.

Yet what makes “The Comedy Lineup” an exciting addition is not the length of the specials, but Netflix’s attempt to give a platform to comics who are not household names. One of the open secrets of live stand-up is that the most famous names are rarely the funniest ones on the bill. They don’t have the time or often the hustle to really hone sets. Of course, novices are too green to be the funniest either. “The Comedy Lineup” provides a delightful sampler of the performers in between.