Tuesday TV Touchbase: What We Do In the Shadows,

Time now for another edition of the Tuesday TV Touchbase, the weekly blog features that answers that burning question, "What the hell is Dave-El is watching on TV?" 








What We Do In the Shadows
After I talked up the first season to my daughter, I introduced Randie to the weird world of What We Do In the Shadows.

The series is created by Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) based on the film of the same name written by Clement and Taika Waititi (JoJo Rabbit, Thor Rangnorok). 

This project is shot like a documentary (in the manner of The Office or Modern Family) and follows four vampire roommates in Staten Island, NY who are just trying live their best undead lives, have a good time and maintain a steady supply of blood.

Nandor the Relentless is vampire who is 757 years old, a former soldier of the Ottoman Empire. He regards himself as the leader of the group. The rest of the group may not necessarily agree with him being the leader but usually they let Nandor think he's the leader because to say otherwise is really much more trouble than it's worth. 

Laszlo Cravensworth isw an English nobleman vampire who was turned by Nadja and is now married to her. He is able to transform himself into a bat, but must shout "Bat!" whenever doing so and can communicate with animals.

Nadja is a Romani vampire with the unique ability to transform into a swarm of rats. She seems slightly more intelligent that the others mostly because she's a woman and the others are just typically stupid men.

Colin Robinson is not like the other vampires.  Instead of drinking blood, he drains energy from humans (and vampires) by being boring and irritating. For example, he spends an episode trying to get other people to respond "What's up, dog?" with statements like, "You seem to have a bad case of updog" and stupid stuff like that.  Colin is a relatively recent convert, appearing as an exceedingly boring looking accountant or something.  Colin is also a Daywalker which allows him to hold down a job which brings in money to pay the rent on the house.

Another principal in the cast is Guillermo, Nandor's familiar. Guillermo has served Nandor master for 10 years in order to become a vampire. Once in a while, Nandor shows small acts of kindness for Guillermo. Mostly, Guillermo is excluded and belittled despite by Nandor and the others despite the fact that Guillermo is continually busting his ass to serve their every whim as well as protecting them from attacks by other vampires. Guillermo is very adept at fighting vampires; it turns our he is a descendant of Van Helsing, the infamous vampire hunter.

A lot of the humor comes from the elder vampires inability to
assimilate to 21st century life on Staten Island. Nandor tries to get a driver's license using his vampire hypnotism on a DMV employee. Unfortunately for Nandor, decades of government work has deadened this person's mind to a state where they are not susceptible to hypnotism. 

I also like it when the hapless documentary crew gets caught up in things. Last season, a visiting vampire kills the sound guy which means that any subsequent dialogue can only be picked up by the mike in the camera.  

What We Do In the Shadows is a funny show with a unique take on vampire lore. 

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Last night, Andrea and I watched All Rise, the CBS courtroom drama which aired an all new episode written and produced after TV and movie studios shut down production in response to the pandemic.  The premise of the episode is trying to keep the justice system running while everyone in quarantined in their homes. Judge Carmichael is trying to preside over a trail where the judge, the defendent, the victim and the respective attorneys are all in different places. It is a difficult experience and one that seems doomed to failure.  Thankfully the judge is able to get the principals to look past their literal separation and get them to see their virtual common cause to see justice done. 

Yes it's sappy but I enjoyed this episode. I haven't been watching this series; I tuned in to see how this experiment in TV production would turn out. I think the actors and the production crew pulled off a successful effort. Enough to maybe make me go back and catch up on this series. 
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I discovered a cable channel that's either new or I simply did not know about called Shorts TV.

It is a channel that shows a variety of short films: documentaries, comedies, dramas, animated featurettes and more. 

Watching the channel has an almost hypnotic effect on me. There are no commercials and the interstitials between segments are quiet and understated.

Every 10, 15 or 20 minutes, one thing leads to another which leads to another. 

I've seen a documentary about a woman who specialize in close up magic, another short documentary about an aspiring actor from India trying to make it in America at a time when America is making it hard for people like him to stay here, a short film with in an O' Henry type vibe about a kidnapping and werewolves, a weird French animated film about a joyless future where women have been reduced to torsos with breasts, a weird mystery on a train involving a Willy Wonka like pink soda drink and more. 

There's always something different and weird on Shorts TV to catch my attention. 
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Next weekend is the season finale of Outlander and I will share my thoughts about that in next week' Tuesday TV Touchbase.