What We Do in the Shadows

First of all, in terms of character, this untraditional sitcom shot in the mockumentary style of the original film, where the characters are aware of the presence of the documentarists and speak to the camera, is very diverse and sophisticated – something you notice from the get go. The first season is basically a relentless deluge of insane humour, which, with the exception of a couple of arguable sexual innuendos, doesn’t have any dead spots and fully exploits the simple but great concept of vampires with antiquated minds and clothes in today’s society. We learn all that we need to know about the past of the characters through short and mostly photographic flashbacks, but the episodic plots unfold before our eyes at a fast pace, while many of the storylines extend through the episodes thanks to the semi-consecutive serialised narration. Our main guide is the adorably obstinate and stressed out Guillermo, who’s basically a slave to his nonchalant and historically unadaptable masters, and is also the only character who goes through a significant development – the vampires themselves rely on a clear typology and you soon know what you can expect from them, but it doesn’t matter. The showrunners have done an amazing job, literally burying the viewer in a barrage of unexpected jokes, while happily parodying the common ideas about the nature of vampires, amusingly contrasting their ridiculous requirements and traditions with the current culture and politics, or expanding the supernatural community, often from classical myths and fairytales. There are a couple of lukewarm episodes in terms of story (the visit to the club and the preparations for the orgy), but they are very well compensated by the funny and amazingly cast characters, cameos by the original film’s cast or Danny Trejo, innumerable brilliant ideas (drunk vampires after drinking the blood of a drunkard) and the awesome energy vampire Colin Robinson, who will make you smile whenever he shows up. If you want to get to know this eccentric gang, book an entire evening for yourselves – most likely, you won’t be able to leave your seat after putting on the first episode. (19.09.2020)

We can still say it’s terrific and original entertainment that you can easily shake-off in the morning (as it’s my case), but there’s less of the humour that can be called genious. At first sight you won’t notice any difference in the formal conception of the first and second seasons, and the creators keep on thinking new ways to develop the motifs surrounding the now fully profiled vampires at a very high tempo – after the werewolves, we get to meet for instance the spirits of human ancestors, witches, and trolls –, without that world ever feeling overstuffed, while the events retain their proven controversy and comedic timing. But this time the episodicism is considerably more noticeable and the closed plots are missing some lightness and punch. Thus, the second season is not as effective, but, given the great feature film and one ten-episode season of a high-octane series on the same theme, it’s not that dramatic. The characters are still great and the creators have tried new stuff – the season finale and the evolution of Guillermo prove that many new interesting things can still happen. 75% (19.09.2020)