“Wellington Paranormal”

Cast: Karen O’Leary (“What We Do in the Shadows”), Mike Minogue (“What We Do in the Shadows”), Maaka Pohatu (“Savage”)

Airs: The six-episode first season premieres Sunday on The CW.

The premise: Officers O’Leary and Minogue are hard-working members of the Wellington Police Department’s paranormal unit, under the supervision of Sgt. Maaka (Maaka Pohatu). They investigate supernatural occurrences in the capital of New Zealand.

“Wellington Paranormal” is a spinoff of the vampire mockumentary film “What We Do In The Shadows,” from Jemaine Clement (“Flight of the Conchords”) and Taika Waititi (“Jojo Rabbit”), who serve as executive producers of the series.

Highs: Imagine if Mulder and Scully from “The X-Files” lived in New Zealand. Now imagine them as police officers instead of FBI agents and their IQ was about 30 points lower. That’s essentially the premise for “Wellington Paranormal,” a laugh-out-loud funny mockumentary comedy-horror series that first aired in New Zealand in 2018 and has finally made its way to the United States.

The series follows the adventures of the unoriginally named Officer O’Leary (Karen O’Leary) and Officer Minogue (Mike Minogue). New Zealand is one of the safest countries in the world, and violent crimes are rare, so for the most part, the duo work on solving small crimes. Noise complaints, dog attacks and petty thefts are typically what the pair has to deal with.

Wellington is so safe that neither officer even carries a gun; their only weapon is one taser they share. Minogue often isn’t allowed to carry one because he keeps mishandling his taser and shooting himself in the leg.

While Wellington isn’t a hot bed of crime, it does seem to be a haven for paranormal activity. This has gone unnoticed by everyone in the police department except for Sgt. Maaka. Within the department, Maaka has created a secret office where he tracks the abnormal activities in Wellington. Needing more manpower, he enlists O’Leary and Minogue into a special, covert unit.

The new assignment leads the officers to all kinds of mystical phenomenon. Ghosts, vampires and zombies are par for the course. O’Leary and Minogue take on the paranormal with a straight- forward approach, treating the undead or a demon just like anyone else. Their casual nature and bumbling tactics lead to plenty of silliness and buffoonery. Adding to the comedy are the specters and ghouls, who are just as inept as the police trying to catch them.

Lows: If you have trouble understanding strong accents, you’ll have a hard time with some of the dialogue in this series. I was born in England, have a British mother and have been to New Zealand, and even I struggled with what characters were saying sometimes, particularly Officer O’Leary. Make sure you have subtitles on or you might miss some of this show’s jokes.

More difficult for some will be “Wellington Paranormal’s” humor, which is more esoteric and abstract than a standard network comedy. If you enjoy the American version of “What We Do in the Shadows,” which is a TV series on FX based on the New Zealand film of the same name, or other projects from Clement and Waititi, this program will hit you right on the funny bone. But if you go into this show expecting a typical network sitcom, you’ll be disappointed.

Grade: (B+): The death knell for the network comedy has been forecast for years ,but 2021 might actually see it happen. There are fewer new network comedies slated to debut this fall than ever before. And NBC, once the home of the “Must See TV” Thursday night comedy block, is going completely comedy-less this fall. If you want to see an NBC sitcom, you’ll have to wait until midseason. With pedantic comedies getting canceled at a rapid pace, perhaps it’s time TV networks rethink the American sitcom. Unique, bold and flat out funny, “Wellington Paranormal” is exactly the type of series that network executives should be embracing.

Gazette TV critic Terry Terrones is a member of the Television Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. You can follow him on Twitter at @terryterrones.