I recently wrote a few words on the television show What We Do In The Shadows, a mockumentary styled show that follows the chaotic lifestyles of vampires in a modern setting. The show is excellent, and I highly recommend watching it if you haven't. In that post's comments section, @domgreg asked whether I had seen something called 'Wellington Paranormal'; something I had never even heard of before.
Well, it didn't take me long to check it out. I kept it in mind until the end of the day and then sat down to watch the first episode having barely even remembered the synopsis I had read hours prior. The first episode was unusual, something that doesn't really catch your immediate attention but gives you enough to question where it could be going. Two police officers in Wellington, New Zealand are introduced: Officer Minogue, and Officer O'Leary. Seemingly normal police officers until they're pulled aside at the station, tucked away into a small hidden office, where they're briefed on the usual, the paranormal, and assigned the task of finding out more information for Seargant Maaka, a fun, very dim, lover of the paranormal.
Each episode loosely follows this structure: a briefing, a debriefing upon discovery of a problem, followed by a final debriefing. With the two officers venturing out into the obscure world of the unknown between. A series that feels very much like The X Files but each character's IQ has been dropped down to room temperature. This is the show's biggest strength by far. No matter the event or character, nothing is taken seriously, and the writing takes full advantage of both idiocy and obliviousness. This allows for the gradual introduction of additional character development which isn't even required. The show doesn't thrive on giving the characters depth, but instead showing how these loveable characters enter such ridiculous scenarios and luck their ways out of them: casually entering a vortex into a dark void only to end up relaxing in someone's hot tub with them moments later. Entering homes of ghosts and dealing with vampires in the night only to walk free having no idea what they just dealt with.
Like What We Do In The Shadows, Wellington Paranormal is shot in a mockumentary fashion: a camera crew follows the officers through their adventures. Though this crew is more isolated form the characters, they have little to no input and just observe the obscurities as they take place. Even when there's some strange event taking place in the background, and it allows for more visual jokes to unfold. Every now and then the crew are involved to some degree, but not enough for it to feel forced and overused.
Forced comedy and overusing it is something I've kept in mind throughout both What We Do In The Shadows and going into Wellington Paranormal. While each episode is fun and the events stack up, where is it going? At which point must it take a turn and begin the inevitable start of the end? Or is it destined to milk the concept to death? Fortunately, I don't see this happening for a while. At its third season, it still feels very fresh, and the paranormal sphere has many doors yet to be opened until it needs to start finishing things up. As mentioned, there's very little character development in the show, but there could be some in the future.
I'm certainly curious as to where it's heading. And I'm definitely going to be sticking around to find out, this is by far one of my favourite shows in a very long time for its excellent writing and nonsensical characters and dialogue. I've tried to avoid mentioning specific episodes and events here in this little review in hopes that nothing is ruined for anyone that does pick up this gem of a show. I highly recommend it, it's certainly relatively unheard of and deserves more recognition.
