What We Do in the Shadows (TV) main character POLL

the show works best when it uses its supernatural elements to enhance sitcommy plots, like that aforementioned showcase for novak.

i still liked this season tho, especially the atlantic city episode and the one with the sire on the loose, and i'm not opposed to world-expanding.

Maybe, but it didn't seem so much like a lack of resources as a lack of ideas.

I think the issue with COVID beyond logistical problems is that people are half-crazy and depressed. It's not easy to write well when you're like that!

My favorite of these so far pic.twitter.com/m75J66QO0K

— Zack Budryk (@BudrykZack) November 20, 2021

one real asset this show has is all four main vampires are played by people who could make you laugh just reading the phonebook

yet they focus so much of the show on familiar dude, who is not a good actor and is not funny and i could give a flying fuck about the sam and diane-ing of him getting a be a vamplire or not. just show me vampires going clubbing and im happy.

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2021 season is nominated in the ILX TV poll, with voting ending this weekend:

ILX's Best Television of 2021 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends After January 31, 2022

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (3 minimum, 25 maximum, ranked by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail. It'll take five minutes; get to it!

Ahhh just watched the first episode of season 4...does it get better? It just wasn't very funny to me. I only let out a small chuckle after the bit about Laszlo's projection TV. Each season has been a little worse than the previous, imo. (Loved the movie, loved season one...)

I haven't had access to watch it yet, but meanwhile season 3 of Wellington Paranormal is the best so far.

I laughed at the Guide/Guillermo stuff in ep 2 but not feeling the Nandor stuff at all.

Not Colin Robinson is amusing at times, like in the museum, but otherwise not so much.

Preadolescent Colin Robinson was an utter delight in this week's episode. Dodgy FX aside.

otm

Thanks all - I'll stay with it at least for a few more episodes...

Fred Armisen is pretty much leaning into the jazz as object of comedic ridicule thing a bit much now, don't you think?

Definitely noticing a lot of “lol jazz is the worst” bits in shows I’m recent years, it does seem to have replaced ska as the go-to punchline music genre for comedy writers

I blame the Boosh

maybe I'm just not feeling it but this season hasn't been as good

the actors seem to mostly be trying to work with what they've been given, but it's too little

Yeah it’s not as good as it used to be but seeing Mark Proksch’s face on a little kid’s body is hilarious/unnerving.

watching this season, everything just moves so fast, they hurry through every scene, its edited within an inch of its life and feels like theyre just constantly rushing to get to the next plot beat. even scenes that are just two people talking look like a michael bay movie sometimes with the avalanche of shots and fast cuts. a lot of the jokes seem like they're overdubbed in at the very last moment before a change to a new scene. theres very little room for performance and delivery which imho is the shows main comedic strength. the stuff with nandor negotiating his penis wish with the djinn was one of the few times i've really laughed this season, mostly bc its just a really funny idea for a scene and seeing those three actors all play it straight was really fun to watch. but there are just so many plots and little stories going on for every character in every episode simultaneously that they just have way too much narrative business to get through in 22 minutes.

they had a whole setup that had been carefully constructed last season with room for each of them to explore their own character, new connections, new storylines. then they said nope, threw all that out and had nadja open a vampire club. show has gotten bad.

I wonder if the budget got squashed or the real life set conditions made them throw the whole gang back together in the house immediately. I figure we’d get a few episodes of solo nonsense, maybe a Jackie Daytona type of thing, and instead we got flooded basement

only watched the first two and yeah it's super weird they ended on such a wild cliffhanger only to go "eh, never mind" within 5 minutes

episode #2 was really good though, Nandor resurrecting all his dead wives was hilarious and the accountant genie was great

I did laugh at the entire “yes, some of my wives are men” moment

yeah all the stuff with nandor is the only stuff that is working for me this season comedy-wise. all the business with nadja, lazlo, kristen schaal, and guillermo has fallen flat for me and seemed like busywork w/not a lot of jokes. even with baby colin robinson, the visual of mark proksch's head on a childs body is very funny but they havent really delivered on the premise very much imho

ok, the night market episode was a little rushed at the beginning but I thought it was funny. the wraith negotiation scene!

first episode was shaky but #2-4 had a lot of funny scenes. the MC for the familiar fights was really funny. the thing with this show is that you kinda have to watch it with captions - Natasia Demetriou and Kristin Schaal lay on such thick accents that I can't tell what they're saying half the time. and when the captions are on you see a bunch of lines that are pretty funny but are basically inaudible.

kristen schaal has been very funny this season, i'm glad she's getting more to do.

don't think the show is bad per se, but it's definitely not delivering the laughs as regularly. i did crack up every time i heard the name "richie suck"

it's only taken me a week to realise that the reason I don't recognise any of these plot lines is you're all talking about a brand new season.

I was looking up something about the show the other day and was reminded of the fact that someone had to re-edit Natasia Demetriou's wikipedia page to adhere to the guidelines, because she uploaded her own wiki picture

It's a very good picture
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Natasia_Demetriou,_What_We_Do_in_The_Shadows,_2019.jpg

Watching now, and Nandor’s face lift is just getting better and better!

Lmao @ Nandor “I have not slept for a week because I keep thinking of ideas for the perfect wedding”

**Cut to Nandor in his coffin writing “WEDING CAKE” in a notebook**

The episodes from the night market on have been much better. I like all the legalistic stuff with the djinn and I really enjoyed Nadja trying to be friends with Gizmo's family. Still not as good as it used to be, but at the end of the last season I was only watching out of habit, and now I'm actively enjoying it again.

hat’s still cursed

I just heard "Emotional Rescue" on the radio, and now I'm dying to hear Jagger's monologue at the end performed by Nandor.

Good little piece by Harvey Guillén who plays Guillermo:

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a40907282/harvey-guillen-what-we-do-in-the-shadows-coming-out/

Matt Berry did a What's In My Bag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HuNNPoAGvQ

ILX may be interested to know that the last record he picks is Cluster II. "It sounds like electronic nightmares. I highly recommend it."

“Go Flip Yourself” maybe my favorite episode of the series so far, I loved the final twist and how hard this show leans into its own ridiculousness

wejust watched the pine barrens ep - the new jersey devil sequence was hysterical omg

Go Flip Yourself is one of the best episodes ever of the whole series, I Ioled many times.

definitely rewound this bit several times

perhaps matt berry's greatest line delivery yet pic.twitter.com/1wxm64GQsK

— jackie daytona (@gentlydirks) August 24, 2022

nyew hyork citayyy

I gotta know if that was ad libbed

as opposed to it being in the script as

nyew hyork citayyy

just watched it again and lmao I totally missed the joke with Nandor testing out the bar in the "man cave"

Just a tiny bit in an episode packed with lots of material, but I appreciated how every attempt by Nadja to perform on stage ended with her falling into the drum set

Nandor: "Stop listing the things that I did!"

I'm only a few episodes into season 4 but I was finding the flanderization of Laszlo annoying in season 3 where literally every line he had seemed to be sex / porn / masturbation related, and so far it feels like he is finally starting to do SOME things that are not about sex.

yeesh, this show has become a totally different animal. went from being something to enjoy to standard trashwatching.
suddenly it has the same general plotting, delivery and setpieces as family guy/rick and morty/every other 2020s carbon copy animation.

agree cant hang

Damn

(still haven't seen any of the new season, will probably re-up on Hulu for the winter or whenever the next season of The Great comes out)

it's not bad, i guess? it's just purposely self-referential, self-congratulatory, high drama nerdery and full-time situational world building and rebuilding. Construct, tear down, etc.

the last episode features nadja hosting youtube panel conversations with famous dead people (don't ask, doesn't matter) and the joke is that Gandhi has to read and ad that sells steaks for Blue Apron. that's more or less where we're at now.

first half of this season was not great, but it improved a lot with the wedding etc

the mistake is the worldbuilding and getting so far outside the dynamic between the main characters that it becomes reliant on just incongruity which isn’t enough

like the pinebarrens ep was great because it hinged more on nandor & lazlo beefing
and not just “what if camping”