WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS
It took me a few tries to get into WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS (trailer here); I didn’t immediately love it. But after I watched OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH, I went on a massive Taika Waititi binge and ended up getting sucked into the world of four Staten Island vampires and their familiar/bodyguard. I love the way this show combines the mundane with the supernatural, with heartfelt moments that sneak up on you. It's consistent in a way that many genre comedies aren’t, in that it not only commits to the bit comedically but also commits to the constraints of its world-building. Showrunner Paul Simms has fine-tuned an exceptional formula for comedy: Take a strange yet clearly-defined world full of bizarre characters who struggle to get along even under the best of circumstances, and force them to deal with anything but. I love this show for its tight writing and clever storytelling, but I love it even more for its relentless humanity (it just… never relents). And somehow in showcasing the mundanity of what it means to be a vampire, WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS has also captured the absurdity of what it means to be human.
—Carrie Smith, Executive Assistant
