Wellington Paranormal is like a series-length comedy version of the “X-Cops” episode of The X-Files

Polygon

Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s second What We Do in the Shadows spinoff, first released in 2018 and premiering Sunday on The CW, follows a special unit of New Zealand’s police force tasked with investigating supernatural activity in the capital city with its two leads, played by Mike Minogue and Karen O'Leary, even comparing themselves to Mulder and Scully. "Mulder and Scully often failed to find answers because they were confronting deep conspiracies, but Minogue and O’Leary fail in their cases because they’re ludicrously oblivious and incompetent," says Samantha Nelson. "In What We Do in the Shadows, the duo were hypnotized into ignoring anything strange in the vampire-occupied house, and they blamed a lost dog for a werewolf attack. They’re just as ineffectual in Wellington Paranormal, often making situations worse and rarely providing any significant assistance to the victims or community."

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• Wellington Paranormal transcends its outdated jokes: "Wellington Paranormal evokes, in no small measure, Fox’s long-running docu-reality series Cops, which was cancelled in the U.S. last year amid growing anti-police sentiment, and this show’s reflections on policing are limited to sporadic and toothless jokes that may have seemed pointed in 2018 but feel banal now," says Niv M. Sultan. "A handful of already archaic gags, including a comedy bit about the dab, are groan-inducing, and the What We Do in the Shadows series casts a sizable shadow over Wellington Paranormal, as that series more sharply incorporates confessionals and the cameraperson as a character to generate both intimacy and humor. But the waggish, winking zaniness of Wellington Paranormal allows it to transcend its outdated elements."
• Not nearly as laugh-out-loud funny as other installments, Wellington Paranormal is still sure to win the hearts of seasoned fans of Clement and Waititi’s quiet brand of comedy: "Wellington Paranormal is well-crafted horror-comedy, using unique practical effects and prostheses to successfully create the monsters terrorizing the city," says Kristen Reid. "From both a writing and acting standpoint, the mockumentary style is expertly employed, often allowing jokes to play out behind our clueless cops. Despite some minor pitfalls in terms of stretching jokes too far, the three lead actors are the perfect level of endearingly oblivious, carrying the series’ few subpar bits to humorous ends anyway."
• Jemaine Clement on making Wellington Paranormal: Mike Minogue and Karen O'Leary "were first introduced in the movie What We Do in the Shadows, and we didn't have names for the characters when we cast them in it," he says. "So they called each other by their respective names (and it stuck). We thought they were so funny, so we decided to make a show about them. They're particularly funny in the way they react because they don't really know what's going on, but they try to keep their cool as these bizarre things are happening around them."