Wellington Paranormal

If you loved What we do in the shadows and then this is the show for you. Laugh out loud comedy from start to finish.

Quirkily funny and entertaining. 7/10

(Review updated after Season 4).

Officers Minogue and O'Leary are two uniformed members of the Wellington, New Zealand, police. Their work is largely uneventful until they encounter a girl who seems straight out of The Exorcist. Their team-leader, Sergeant Maaka, sets up a secret team to tackle paranormal phenomena. The team is the three of them.

Quirkily funny. Created by Taika Waititi (director of What We Do In the Shadows, Hunt For The Wilderpeople, Boy and Thor: Ragnarock) and Jermaine Clement (of Flight Of The Conchords fame), this captures much of their signature understated, tongue-in-cheek humour.

Not brilliant though. What We Do In The Shadows was superb and I was expecting this to be effectively a TV series of that. However, Wellington Paranormal is less laugh-a-minute, less clever in many respects and feels a bit formulaic after a while. So, disappointing in a way, though I set the bar quite high.

After four seasons the quality is diminishing too. Season 4 is definitely weaker than previous seasons and much of the humour has been replaced with silliness. This generally involves Officer Parker who was always more irritating than amusing.

Season ratings: S1-3 7/10, S4 6/10.

Not since Police Squad which was criminally cancelled far to early have we had genuinely funny spoof police comedy like this. It's like a cross between Police Squad and spoof X Files delivered completely dead pan. Clearly those giving it low marks don't like sarcasm or dry humour - if that's not your thing then avoid but don't give it a 1 just because you don't like that kind of humour.

I love this show, I love WWDITS and this is a great spin off. The characters try to be solid police officer types but end up sending themselves up along with the rest of their colleagues and company. Poor Wellington real PD who I'm sure do a really great job, as these guys only seem to bungle their way round the most paranormal city in the world and get away with it. I like the cameos from the film and would have liked to have seen Stu, but never mind the series is great as it is with Nick and Anton making appearances.

This alone is a great show. But for those who enjoy the spooky and funny, this is a real hit. From a viewer to the creators, this show is an absolute blast.