Last year, Netflix released season one of a TV series based off of my favorite childhood book series: A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. More recently, season two premiered on Netflix, and I continued watching. (The book series has thirteen books, and the Netflix adaptation focuses on one book over the span of two episodes. Each season of the series includes about four-five books, and was recently renewed for a third and final season.)
A Series of Unfortunate Events is a series about three orphans, Sunny, Klaus and Violet Baudelaire who's parents "perished" in a fire in their family home. A man named Mr. Poe, who works for the bank, is assigned to their case, and is in charge of finding them a new guardian. Each time the orphans are placed under the care of a new guardian, either something mysterious happens to the adult, or Count Olaf has taken on a new disguise to fool everyone around them, and for some reason only the children can see through his lies. Count Olaf was their evil first guardian, and he basically kidnaps them, treats them like maids and even tells the children he is only after their family fortune. While the Baudelaire orphans are moved from home to home, thinking they're safe under the care of a new guardian, Count Olaf and his group of henchmen are always one step behind them.
First of all, the characters. In the books, Violet is the eldest of the triplets, and she is portrayed as very strong and somewhat more masculine in my mind, while in the show she is very dainty and very pretty, which just isn't how shes shown in the books at all. Klaus and Sunny however, are portrayed extremely accurately, all except for Sunny's teeth. She is supposed to have long, pointy front teeth that stick out, but they don't show them in the show, unless she is eating something. Klaus is exactly how I pictured him, and he acts like he does in the books. (Look down below for comparison pictures.)
I'm not sure how I feel about the live action version of Count Olaf, I can't tell if he's portrayed completely accurately or it's the worst thing I've ever seen? Neil Patrick Harris does do an amazing job at making the role his own, but I think I would've liked to seen him be more serious and make less jokes to appear more scary. When you think about all of the things this criminal has done, he's an actual serial killer, but we don't think about it because of all the sarcasm and funny things he does to mask it.
Another thing I have an issue with is the fact that the kids are never shown to be actually sad about their situation, and that's something that throws me off a lot. It makes me super uncomfortable that these children have been moved from place to place constantly, they're being stalked by a man who tried to Marry Violet for money, their parents are missing, and not once did they really stop to establish any real emotion in this show. Growing up, I guess I took this series way too seriously, because Netflix categorizes it as a comedy, which I would've never imagined when I was younger. Now that I think about it, the ironic tone throughout the book was definitely carried throughout the show, which is something I liked. (But I definitely did not pick up on that when I was younger.)
I think I would have to give the show a good-good rating only because of the memories I have with the book series. I don't necessarily love the actors they chose, or the fact that Sunny is clearly a CGI baby most of the time. Personally, I think the pacing in the show moves entirely too quickly- even though technically if you're focusing on one book at a time, two episodes worth of time is well over an hour, but when I remember reading these books I remember all the detail that's not focused on in the TV show adaptation. Some things just do not make sense if you have not read the books, like possibly the whole entire subplot of the narrator and adult characters. The viewer is introduced to multiple new characters each episode and they either disappear or get killed off (in that same episode), and having to remember each detail about them in a minimal amount of time is difficult.
(In 2004 a Series of Unfortunate Events movie came out, and personally, from what I remember, all of the characters were shown to be very accurately portrayed, besides the lack of Klaus's glasses. Plus, the kids were more Gothic looking, which is how the books drawings shows them, which is something I admire. However, I don't remember much of the movie besides that, so I don't have an opinion on how the acting was or the pacing etc.)
Overall, watching this series made me feel very nostalgic and want to re-read the books to see how different and similar they really are, and maybe I can pick up on the very sarcastic and ironic undertones to the series. The books will always hold a special place in my heart, and I think that they could've made the TV series a lot better.
A Series of Unfortunate Events Season 2
Other Recommended Titles:
Stranger Things
Group of small boys from the 80's play games and see aliens.
Malcolm in the Middle
Family of big boys fights like each episode but it's relatable.
13 Reasons Why
Based on a book, a sad girl blames her friends for her own suicide, dramatic.
Atypical
Boy on the autism spectrum tries to get a gf. Kinda funny.
(The orphans arriving at Count Olaf's:
The first book, the 2017 Cast and the 2004 Cast)
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