By Mistake Season 1 review: Poorna Mysore and Siri Ravikumar are a delight as a couple that’s together 'by mistake'

3.5/5

Story: Co-workers and flat mates, Mythri (Siri Ravikumar) and Bharath (Poorna Mysore) have certain dreams. She wants to set up a mobile café and retire by the time she’s 40 and he wants to be recognized for his actual skillset – coding. They are perfect as flat mates, respecting each other’s boundaries, until, one night of drunken passion changes all of that.

Review: What a refreshing watch this was! The creators of the rom-com Honeymoon, Century Star Shiva Rajkumar’s Shri Mutthu Cine Services and Sakkath Studios strike again, this time too in the same genre, but with another novel concept. While Honeymoon was about a couple discovering each other while on their honeymoon, By Mistake follows an unlikely two-some, who are better off being flat-mates than romantically involved. But then, as the title suggests, by mistake, something happens between them, changing the course of their lives.

The plot of By Mistake is fairly simple - a couple and the aftermath of one night of passion. What makes it an immensely watchable binge-fest is the smart writing, the characters and the actors playing each of them. The stars of the show are, no doubt, Poorna and Siri Ravikumar as Bharath and Mythri, but the supporting cast is equally entertaining, especially Urvashi HV as Veena, the girl Bharath’s folks want him to marry, and Sowmya Jaganmurthy as Vaishnavi, Mythri’s friend and colleague.

By Mistake is an urban tale and meant for an audience that is accepting of a more contemporary setting and sexually-liberated characters. There’s no judgement about the living arrangement of the lead couple or emotional drama after they’ve had sex. There’s nothing over-the-top about the setting or the way anyone behaves or speaks. If you’ve been city-bred long enough, By Mistake will actually feel quite relatable. Whether it is the interactions between colleagues in a corporate office, Bharath and Veena trying to figure out if they are compatible with each other or Bharath and Mythri dealing with the aftermath of a one-night stand, there are top-notch dialogues and performances to match and that’s what makes this show interesting. The pacing is also good; it’s got all of six episodes and barring the last one, which is 41 minutes long, the rest don’t make it past the 25-minute mark, so you can watch the whole season in one sitting.

When Voot Select was set to bring the Kannada version of Honeymoon to audiences a few weeks ago, a good two years after it had come on Aha Telugu, it did so with great fanfare, in the presence of producer Shiva Rajkumar and the main cast, Nagabhushana and Sanjana Anand. Strangely, there’s not even been a whisper about By Mistake from the streamer, which is surprising, considering the content is by no means any less. If anything, I’d say it is actually a much better watch than Honeymoon.

Verdict: It looks like the drought of good Kannada content on OTTs is set to end. Watch this one – it’s good fun!