Wellington Paranormal: Season 1 – Review

When I was a mere, young, uni-student butterfly, I saw the first six minutes of What We Do in the Shadows and instantly found my nearest screening of it. At the time, the film had nowhere near a wide release, and I could only find a screening at my small university cinema in the middle of the day. I watched it and adored it, beginning my deep love for anything Taika Waititi. What I thought would remain a small New Zealand-Indie flick, ended up blowing up in popularity in the States—partly due to its director’s rising stardom. This popularity eventually warranted a spin-off, Wellington Paranormal, providing New Zealand with a new comedic property that has the opportunity to rival a certain comedic-folk duo.

The first few episodes have been released and, I have to say, they are pretty solid. Wellington Paranormal follows two members of the Wellington police force, O’Leary and Minogue, as they wander their way into a paranormal taskforce after some demon shenanigans prove quite the inconvenience for the kiwis. Presented in a dry, mockumentary dead-pan, the show follows a monster-of-the-week format as our leads investigate new phenomena. The episodic format of the show is oddly refreshing in today’s over-serialised television landscape, where even South Park has begun to tell long-form stories. The episodic format works extremely well here, as audiences will be kept guessing what’s to come.

The leads, Karen O’Leary and Mike Minogue (playing their namesakes) are pitch-perfect, presenting the calm, collected personas the Australian/New Zealand police officers love to present on their reality TV escapades. This is the strongest element of the show’s parody, as despite their composure, our two officers are rather… well, idiotic. Unfortunately, they sometimes become too idiotic, breaking the immersion and making some of their chatter more frustrating than amusing. Thankfully, the performers are likeable enough to keep us with them. However, the MVP of the piece is Maaka Pohatu as Sergeant Maaka (they really aren’t creative with their character names), presenting a perfect concoction of childish excitement and professional poise that comes off as incredibly likeable.

The show is, expectedly, on a much lower-scale than its film companion. What We Do in the Shadows had a stylistic flair that is all-but missing here, with Jermaine Clement taking Waititi’s directing duties for the show. If you go into this expecting more of the film, you will be slightly disappointed, as the series is a lot less quotable and visually pleasing. But, for what the series offers, it does quite well. Once it steps out of the shadows of its predecessor, Wellington Paranormal will stand up as a quaint, funny little mockumentary from across the Tasman.