Parents' Guide to Just Another Immigrant

Funny but confusing, this series has a charming and hilarious lead in Romesh Ranganathan, but under serves him by placing him in a number of contrived set ups that fail to result in smart laughs. It's reminiscent of cringe comedies like Nathan for You and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and uses a faux-documentary style that keeps you wondering how much of this is improvised versus scripted. At the opening of the series we see a montage of Romesh's real, hugely successful stand up career in the UK -- a career that he'd need to have a certain amount of savvy and smarts to achieve. Yet once he comes to the US, he makes a series of stupid decisions, like booking the 6,000 seat Greek Theater without (supposedly) any idea how to sell tickets, that simply come across as fake obstacles, existing only to set up potential comedic situations. While playing the buffoon is something smart comics do all the time, what torpedoes the premise further is that Just Another Immigrant is shot like a documentary, with Romesh speaking directly to the camera and often conversing with an unseen camera operator.It's never clear whether we're supposed to cheer for Romesh or shake our head in exasperation at him like we do Larry David. It's too bad, because he has an incredible deadpan delivery that deserves to be appreciated. Unfortunately, Just Another Immigrant doesn't trust the innate intelligence of its star and drops the ball by trying to make the audience believe he's a fool.