Officers Minogue and O’Leary bring in what appears to be a projectile-vomiting drunk teenager.

Sky bring Jemaine Clement’s and Taika Waititi’s New Zealand comedy documentary series to British shores just as the third season completes on its home shores. A spin-off of their hilarious vampire movie and series What We Do in the Shadows, imagine a Wellington-set hybrid of Cops and The X Files.

We follow beat cops Minogue (Mike Minogue) and O’Leary (Karen O’Leary) as they patrol the city centre – usually following up mundane incidents – and then they meet a young girl who’s not actually had a few drinks too many, she’s possessed by demon Bazu’aal of the Unholy Realm. After a scuffle, she’s brought in for questioning, where she scuttles around the walls of the interview room before escaping.

That’s when the officers are taken aside by Sargent Maaka (Maaka Pohatu) who enlists them to the Wellington Police Paranormal Unit, a covert branch of the force tasked with investigating ‘anything otherworldly or defies investigation’. Minogue and O’Leary are our inept Mulder and Scully, who struggle to recognise the supernatural activity emanating from the city’s hellmouth, but luckily Maaku’s Skinner has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the supernatural and helps his bewildered officers.

Co-creator Jemaine Clement directs this opening instalment, balancing both the gentle humour and the big shocks – there’s a particularly impressive 360-degree head spin and some movie quality stunt work. But the heart of the show is the pairing of the cops – in over their heads, but blissfully unaware.

Verdict: A rollicking half-hour of supernatural shenanigans, packed with horror references and big belly laughs. A great start. 9/10

Nick Joy