On January 13, 2017, Netflix released its own digital adaptation of Lemony Snicket’s critically acclaimed children’s book series A Series of Unfortunate Events. Upon first hearing news of the Netflix series, most people were skeptical, and understandably so. The last visual adaptation of Snicket’s series, a movie starring Jim Carrey, had been a disappointment and now ranks only 6.8/10 stars on IMDb. The Netflix adaptation, I am pleased to say, is much better.
While the 2004 production is less than two hours and covers only the first three of thirteen books, the first season of the Netflix series is comprised of eight episodes, each approximately 50 minutes. Each book is allotted two episodes, which means that each story is essentially given the running time of an entire movie, and there is plenty of time to capture every detail from Snicket’s original novels.
A Series of Unfortunate Events follows the story of the Baudelaire siblings: Violet, a fourteen-year-old engineering genius (Melina Weissman); Klaus, a twelve-year-old bookworm (Louis Haynes); and baby Sunny (Presley Scott), who has magnificent incisors and puts her own spin on “baby talk.” After their parents die in a mysterious fire, the Baudelaire children are passed from guardian to guardian, beginning with the washed-up actor and con-man Count Olaf (Neil Patrick Harris), who is eager to sink his claws into the Baudelaire fortune.
Since I read the books, I could vaguely anticipate how each episode would play out. Even so, the Netflix adaptation takes several twists, and boring is perhaps the last adjective I would use to describe the show. With oddities ranging from pastel houses to a baby with woodchucker teeth to the ridiculous aliases assumed by Count Olaf, the first season of A Series of Unfortunate Events is, to be frank, absurd. While this absurdity adds a comedic dimension to the show, it also deterred me at first, so be warned: the first two to three episodes are the hardest to watch. As the show progressed, however, I grew more attached to the Baudelaires, plotlines developed, and the show became more compelling.
Overall, I was extremely impressed by the level of authenticity with which the show emulated the books. Beyond simply sticking to the plot, Netflix managed to balance the darkness of the Baudelaires’ never-ending misfortune with a certain level of silliness in a manner that captured the quirky essence of the books. With America going through some of its most divisive times in recent history, A Series of Unfortunate Events is a cathartic show that will remind American viewers that no matter how bad things become, at least we aren’t being chased down by an evil thespian dressed as a woman.
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