What We Do in the Shadows season 3 is going to be the best part of your day

There’s nothing better than capping off the week with a genuinely smart and hilarious TV show that as witty as it is absurd.

What We Do in the Shadows is both big and small, grandiose and petty, over-the-top and droll.

Its genius is in how it exploits the tension between two opposing forces in crafting a TV comedy that is genuinely laugh-out-loud funny. It’s a show that easily inspires appreciation for witty wordplay as much as it elicits guffaws for lowbrow pornography jokes.

It can do both — and last season’s ghost jizz is proof positive of that — and it’s often only in a rewatch that you see just how clever it was.

Returning for its third season this week on Binge*, as absurd and invigorating as ever, What We Do in the Shadows is that rare high-concept comedy in which the novelty still hasn’t worn off.

There was always a risk that it would, especially given its origins as an American TV spin-off of a beloved New Zealand mockumentary feature about vampire housemates in Wellington.

Understanding why the original worked so well, and finding a fresh dynamic thanks to its amazing casting of Kayvan Novak as Nandor, Matt Berry as Laszlo, Natasia Demetriou as a Nadja, Harvey Guillen as Guillermo and Mark Proksch as Colin Robinson, has ensured the creative success of the TV version.

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What We Do in the Shadows streams on Binge. Picture: Russ Martin/FX

Particularly gleeful is the addition of Proksch’s Colin Robinson character, an energy vampire who feeds on your life force by being the most boring person on Earth, the kind of person who would quote Lady Gaga by casually calling her Stefani Germanotta.

And Proksch plays him with such an unassuming wiliness, he steals every scene even though the very nature of that character means he shouldn’t. Colin Robinson’s curiosity about his energy vampire heritage this season is setting us up for what should be either an amazing – or pointedly deflating – reveal.

Elsewhere, Nandor and Nadja are jostling for power when the gang are given the keys to the Vampire Council (by returning guest star Kristen Schaal) but only one of them can be numero uno. You can just imagine how petty this battle becomes.

But Nandor has other preoccupations, such as trying to overcome his loneliness by looking for love in different places, even if it means buying a huge supply of strawberry yoghurt.

And Laszlo, well, he’s Laszlo – horny, unfiltered and utterly charming in an inexplicable way.

What We Do in the Shadows’s Colin Robinson is the unintentional scene-stealer.

From Roy Cohn’s encyclopaedia of sex positions to a bonkers plot in Atlantic City, plus a sardines analogy you can never forget, What We Do in the Shadows continues to be preposterously funny.

It could have rested on its laurels and given fans more of the same, especially as they’re near ageless vampires whose very existence in the 21st century is an anachronism, but the series tries to do more.

The evolution of the character of Guillermo, from doormat familiar to vampire slayer, challenges everyone else in the house to change. The dynamic between the characters has shifted, and so too has the show, even if it’s subtle.

Like Guillermo, it’s bolder but without losing its innate character.

What We Do in the Shadows premieres on Binge* on Friday, September 3 with a double episode and then new instalments weekly

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*Binge is majority owned by News Corp, publisher of news.com.au