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Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
Netflix

After a bad beginning, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events found its oddly-shaped footing by the latter half of the series.

Since Netflix announced a reboot of this much loved children’s book series, audiences have been eagerly waiting to binge the streaming giant’s newest original show. The expectations were high; the series is popular worldwide. I wanted to give this show five stars so badly. Why couldn’t it just be perfect, Netflix?

I am sorry to tell you reader, but the first two episodes of this series did not live up to an avid reader’s expectations. If there was one adjective I would use to describe the beginning of this series, it would be “twee”. “Twee” here means “affectedly or excessively dainty, delicate, cute, or quaint” which is something the Snicket books are not. Adapting Snicket for television was always going to be a difficult task.

As Count Olaf, Neil Patrick Harris’ over-played what could have been nuanced meta-humour, and ultimately unveiled a surprising lack of comic timing in the first three episodes. Harris proved he could do a great pastiche of Annie’s Miss Hannigan, but not of Count Olaf. What Netflix were thinking when they cast the young, charismatic and exceptionally attractive Neil Patrick Harris as the series-defining villain? Thankfully, Harris grew with the series and eventually excelled at Olaf’s character acting, especially as Shirley in episode seven and eight.

Daniel Handler, the man behind Lemony Snicket, wrote a teleplay that captured the dark, sardonic, humorous, clever,  and form-aware aspects of the books exceptionally well for long-form television. The series seemed to settle into this definitively offbeat style by episode four, before excelling in episode seven with the Will Arnett and Cobie Smulders’ plot twist. The music, drama and macabre humour finally converged as the elder children, Violet and Klaus Baudelaire (Malina Weissman and Louis Hynes) grew into their initially hesitant performances. Weissman in particular provided the emotion required to balance Patrick Warburton’s humour as Snicket.

This first series is not perfect but it has the right elements to make a fully realised second season. Unfortunately, this second season is yet to be confirmed. Until then, enjoy the perfectly pitched macabre and calamitous irony of Usman Ally as The Hook-Handed Man.