Mumbai Calling Season One DVD

Mumbai Calling
 
Sanjeev Bhaskar is possibly one of the funniest British comedians. His writing on things like Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumars at Number 42 has made him a household name. Much like Corden and Horne, it wasn't long until he produced something that was horrible. They had the godawful Horne and Corden show and now Bhaskar has Mumbai Calling.
 
As he is only co-writer, of Mumbai Calling, he can only take half the blame, but that is more than enough as this series goes through almost every Indian and English stereotype and clichéd joke that is in existence. When a scene starts with the line 'It's come to our attention that you're Indian' you can almost feel it sliding downhill from there.
 
Kenny Gupta (Bhaskar) is a British accountant who is sent to India to turn around the profits of an ailing call centre in Mumbai Teknobabble (Sadly, this is probably the funniest thing about the show!). Aided by call centre manager Dev Raja (Nitin Ganatra) who is trying to hold everything together while the call centre falls apart around him. We join the show six months later, when they are joined by Terri Johnson (Daisy Beaumont) who of course Gupta falls for and spends the rest of the series hopelessly moping over.
 
For those of you who have worked in a call centre you may find some enjoyment in the constant joke calls that are taken by various staff members, however, as the episodes progress they become almost like inserts to hide where comedy should be. If the show was simply these calls we might have had something, unfortunately by having this sitcom surrounding it, the show is bland and scenes that are ending with jokes seem to be lost in bad writing. At times it feels like an Indian version of Fawlty Towers with Gupta (as Basil) trying to sort out another mess before Head Office or Johnson finds out and then at times it feels like Family Guy or Scrubs, with constant cuts to the past for comic effect, which are a little hit and miss.
 
At only seven episodes it is odd that this was spread over two disks. The extras include an interview with Bhaskar and Ganatra A huge about how they came to be involved in the project and their experiences. Also included is an over indulgent hour long documentary about the making of the show which leaves no stone unturned when it came to making the show. It also includes deleted scenes and outtakes, which really should have been kept separate. One interesting thing is how when they made the original pilot it was completely destroyed by the critics, yet they continued and produced this! It's a shame that they didn't include the full original pilot on this disk as if this is the better version, I'd love to have seen what it was like originally. The extras are rounded off with a three minute promo for the show which is actually a 'best of the season' and far more entertaining than watching every episode.
 
Mumbai Calling is not a great show, but there are bits of the show that did have me rocking with laughter. However, these are few and far between and they really need to do better for me to be calling on this series again!