Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Thoughts On 'What We Do In The Shadows'

I came late to this series, but watching it has completely brightened up lockdown, in a shadowy sort of way. The episode where the terrifyingly enormous werewolf is lured off the top of a building by a squeaky bone has got to be one of the funniest things I've seen in ages.

Like a lot of good TV comedy, there is food for thought in more than just it's funniness. The episode where they all went to court for ending the life of the bad vampire (he frazzled in the sun when the familiar Guillermo accidentally opened the door, holding masses of roses he'd bought to help to disguise the smell of the bad vampire), is a case in point. At the court there was a Green Room for the familiars, with snacks and uncomfortable seating. The familiars were of all shapes and sizes. One was 75 years old. 'I'm going to be a vampire soon!', he said. Guillermo's face fell; he realised something that he was trying really hard not to realise: he was never going to be made a vampire, no matter how many years he put in as a familiar. I thought about how in real life, these relationships happen. Vampire types surround themselves with sycophantic familiar types, who live in hope of graduating to the heights of vampiredom, but they'll never get there. Just when their prized status is in sight, the vampire will topple them back down to the bottom of the pile, and the next familiar in the queue will start to live in hope. This happens so often in life that I've become quite entertained by identifying situations where it's going on.

And Colin Robinson- what a stroke of genius to have an energy vampire who even wears the real vampires out! He has a boring room in their residence, where he apparently sits at a loss waiting for opportunities to victimise people with boredom.

One of these days, the episodes on iPlayer will end. I will miss them. They are my lockdown friends and I think about them when I'm not with them. I hope they will be OK.

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