Watchable Aug. 30-Sept 5, 2021

SHOW OF THE WEEK: Only Murders in the Building (Aug. 31, Disney Plus)

You’d already have most viewers at “Steve Martin and Martin Short in a TV comedy together,” but throw in Selena Gomez as a sarcastic third wheel, a grand old New York apartment building as a setting and an actual mystery to be solved, and you have the delightful “Only Murders in the Building.”

The septuagenarians and their 30-something neighbour form an unlikely trio when a fire alarm drives them out of their Beaux-Arts building and into a bar where they discover their shared passion for a certain true crime podcast.

Charles (Martin) is an actor who’s coasting on his fame from a decades-old detective drama. Oliver (Short) is an off-off-off-off-off Broadway director who’s still gunning for Great White Way glory. Mabel (Gomez) is an aspiring interior designer from a humble Long Island neighbourhood who’s staying in her aunt’s apartment.

When the young man they all saw in the elevator just an hour before turns up dead in his ninth-floor apartment, the “true crime nuts” band together to figure out who killed him, turning their hunt into a podcast at the urging of Oliver with the name “Only Murders in the Building” — as in they’ll only investigate crimes that happen in their building.

All three are personally and professionally adrift for various reasons and the podcast gives them a sense of purpose and the connection they’ve been missing. The fronts they’ve all put up — Charles’s reserve, Oliver’s preening and Mabel’s ironic detachment — start to crumble as they begin to care about each other. And we begin to care right along with them.

Martin and Short, having appeared together in beloved films like “Three Amigos” and “Father of the Bride,” as well as their 2018 Netflix comedy special, have their characters and their prickly relationship down pat, but Gomez holds her own against the two legends.

She even gets some of the best lines. When Oliver explains that he keeps his door unlocked to be neighbourly, Mabel quips, “A murderer probably lives in the building, but I guess old white guys are only afraid of colon cancer and societal change.”

As the trio follows clues to what looks like a viable solution to the mystery, they get a skeptical police detective (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) on side, but a twist at the end of Episode 8 — which is as far as I was given access to — makes it clear the killer is still on the loose and our amateur criminologists are at risk.

The 10-episode series was created by Martin and Brooklyn-born actor and screenwriter John Hoffman (“Grace and Frankie”), with Dan Fogelman (“This Is Us”) executive-producing.

The supporting cast is also nothing to sneeze at, including some real-life New York habitués like Nathan Lane, Amy Ryan and Michael Cyril Creighton. Sting appears as himself and there’s another cameo by a high-profile comedy star that I’m not allowed to tell you about.

“Only Murders in the Building” is appealing as a buddy comedy a trois, and as a gentle satire of both New Yorkers and the true crime genre, and at its best when Martin, Short and Gomez are all onscreen, leading us down an entertaining rabbit hole.

Disney Plus also has “The D’Amelio Show” (Sept. 3) about TikTok stars Dixie and Charli D’Amelio and their family.

What We Do in the Shadows (Sept. 2, 10 p.m., FX)

Vampires, they’re just like us.

Or, at least, the vampires of this Emmy-nominated comedy are human-like enough in the foibles that creator Jemaine Clement and his writers mine for laughs, which is obviously the main appeal of the show.

As Season 3 begins, housemates Nandor (Kayvan Novak), Laszlo (Matt Berry), Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) and Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch) have a dilemma: what to do with human familiar Guillermo (Harvey Guillén), who saved their lives at the end of Season 2 by slaying the dozens of vampires who were about to execute them but has now been exposed as a vampire killer.

I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that Guillermo survives and even gets a promotion of sorts as the Staten Island blood suckers become default rulers of the Vampiric Council for the Eastern Seaboard, seeing as how Guillermo killed off the old ones.

Nandor and Nadja each hope to grab power for themselves — and Nadja, who’s having a smidgen of a feminist awakening, is pleased to become a “working woman” — although Nandor is beginning to wonder if there’s more to eternal life than “mindless killing and bloodlust.” Energy vampire Colin Robinson — who, in a welcome development, has become a more equal member of the household — wants to know where he came from as he turns 100. And Laszlo? He’s keen to explore’s the world’s oldest and largest collection of pornography in the Vampiric Council library.

So no, not everyone is feeling reflective.

I can’t say that the four episodes I was able to review were uniformly hilarious but, three seasons in, I’m invested enough to enjoy watching the world’s least cool vampires and their wannabe companion muddle through.

Wellington Paranormal (Sept. 3, Crave)

If the absurdity of “What We Do in the Shadows” tickles your funny bone, you should enjoy this show, which Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi created as a spinoff of the movie version of “Shadows.”

Lead “Wellington Paranormal” actors Mike Minogue and Karen O’Leary appeared in the film, credited only as “Policeman” and “Policewoman.” Here, they’re the main event as Officer Minogue and Officer O’Leary, put in charge of the newly formed Wellington police paranormal unit.

Minogue considers them the New Zealand version of Mulder and Scully of “The X-Files” — if Mulder and Scully had a habit of routinely overlooking clues.

I’ve only seen the first season — all three seasons to date will be on Crave, while a fourth season is reportedly in post-production — in which Minogue and O’Leary investigate demons, aliens, ghosts, werewolves, vampires and zombies, but it seems the supernatural selection expands in the subsequent instalments.

A particular highlight of the show is their true believer boss, Sgt. Maaka (Maaka Pohatu), who sets up the secret unit in a tiny office hidden behind shelves. The deadpan earnestness with which all three handle investigations and the low-budget nature of the operation, including the sometimes ridiculous looking creatures, is all part of the charm.

Short Takes

Bitchin’: The Sound and the Fury of Rick James (Sept. 3, Crave)

If your only knowledge of funk musician Rick James is the song “Super Freak” and his 1990s assault convictions, you’ll learn some things in this documentary. There’s no question that James, born James Ambrose Johnson Jr. in Buffalo in 1948, had a very dark, misogynistic side, fuelled by rampant cocaine and other drug use, but the doc also makes the case for his unique contribution to Black American music via the “punk funk” style he pioneered. His musical output went way behind “Super Freak,” including the triple platinum album “Street Songs,” but author David Ritz notes that fame “will chew you up and spit you out” if you’re not emotionally well grounded. It caught up with James in 2004 when he died at the age of 56 with nine drugs in his system.

Crave also has the movie “Promising Young Woman,” which won Emerald Fennell (“The Crown”) an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, dropping on Sept. 3 and the mid-Season 5 premiere of Billions on Sept. 5.

Odds and Ends

Camila Cabello is the star attraction in a musical remake of “Cinderella” (Sept. 3, Amazon Prime Video), which also stars Billy Porter of “Pose,” who gets bigger billing than the Prince (Nicholas Galitzine) as Fab G, a genderless fairy godparent.

The 2017 documentary “Metric: Dreams So Real” makes its broadcast premiere on Hollywood Suite (Sept. 2, 9 p.m.), capturing a 2016 concert by the Toronto band and kicking off a month of musical programming on the pay TV channel.

Netflix has the documentary series “Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror” (Sept. 1), which examines what led to the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and how they changed history; Part 5, Volume 1 of the Spanish hit “Money Heist” (Sept. 3); the animated series “Q-Force” (Sept. 2) about an intelligence squad of LGBTQ geniuses; Season 3 of social media reality competition “The Circle” (Sept. 2) and the new series “Sparking Joy” (Aug. 31) if you’re not all Marie Kondo’ed out.

PBS “Masterpiece” has the four-part series “Guilt” (Sept. 5, 9 p.m.), about two Scottish brothers played by two Scottish actors, Mark Bonnar (“Line of Duty,” “Quiz”) and Jamie Sives (“Frontier,” “Game of Thrones”), who kill someone in a hit-and-run and try to cover it up.

On BritBox, the popular detective drama “Vera,” starring Brenda Blethyn, returns for its 11th season on Sept. 1.

NOTE: The listings here are in Eastern Standard Time, and reflect information provided to me and cross-checked where possible, but it’s always best to check listings for your own area. The selection of programs reviewed reflects what I’m given access to by networks and streamers, whether reviews are embargoed, how many shows I have time to watch and my own personal taste.