Jiro and Juan

The brilliant IFC comedy series “Documentary Now!” is between seasons right now, but I recently discovered that IFC has a channel on Pluto TV and that one of the things it shows is “Documentary Now!”

“Documentary Now!” (the exclamation point is theirs, not mine) is executive produced by Seth Meyers, and its first two seasons starred Meyers’ former SNL castmates Fred Armisen and Bill Hader. The third season featured Armisen only briefly and Hader not at all, but as brilliant as they are, some critics thought that their absence made the third season even funnier, opening it up to new targets that didn’t necessarily have to rely on the talents of the same two stars every week.

“Documentary Now!” is a series which presents fictitious parody documentaries. Often, the parody is of a specific documentary — “Sandy Passage” was a parody of “Grey Gardents,” “Final Transmission” a parody of “Stop Making Sense,” and so on. At other times, the parody is of a particular style of documentary. “DRONEZ: The Hunt For El Chingon,” with a very funny guest appearance by Jack Black, was a parody of Vice’s investigative reporting in general. “Gentle & Soft: The Story of the Blue Jean Committee” was a parody of rockumentaries in general.

Each episode is introduced with great gravitas by Helen Mirren — yes, the real Helen Mirren — under the pretense that “Documentary Now!” is a distinguished, long-running documentary series. The first season of “Documentary Now!” was introduced as if it were the 50th-anniversary season, and the second as the 51st, and so on.