A Series of Unfortunate Reviews: The Season One Overview
As a whole, the first season of A Series of Unfortunate Events is a wonderful adaptation of the first four books, and a very enjoyable show.
There was a lot of excitement held for this series, but there were elements of doubt that lingered. Was this Netflix series going to live up to the expectations? Or would it fall short and lose hope of both the fans and the casual viewer? After all the 2004 movie, while passable and amusing, fell short on quite a many fronts, and it seemed that there might not be success for our beloved book series; however, with each new bit of trailer and interview with cast and Handler, the Netflix series seemed promising still.
I am happy to report that A Series of Unfortunate Events Season One lives very well up to its expectations and exceeds them in several accounts.
As far as the casting went, previously I held no real opinion though I was concerned on the quality of the acting. Rest assured, everyone is better than you can expect, from NPH’s Olaf, to the children, and even the side characters.
I did, however, note concern before the show aired, about whether or not Patrick Warburton’s portrayal of the elusive and dry witted Lemony Snicket would be a good one. Lemony Snicket was one of the things I admired the 2004 movie for, keeping Jude Law silhouetted and having his voice be the occasional narrating that we know and love. I must say though, I was surprised with how seamless Patrick Warburton’s Lemony fit in with the world. He really captured a lot of the great dark humorous moments and while I still would likely have preferred a blurry shadowy photograph than a clear face of the elusive author, I love the idea that he simply is everywhere and anywhere while also having places that he is in solidly. It keeps with the fluid nature of his character in the books, being everywhere the Baudelaires are while also being in concrete places at times when describing the Editor Letters and through The Unauthorized Autobiography.
The children, I love them very much. Again, while excited for the show as a whole, I was overall ambivalent to the casting. I would leave my opinion until I saw them in the full context. And now that the full context has been viewed. Oh boy. These children are the absolute best. I love Malina’s portrayal of Violet and Louis’ portrayal of Klaus. I almost immediately connected to them, and hardly discerned the transition from page to screen. They had much more balance in comparison to the 2004 movie, which was another thing that had many of us worried. Klaus was a strong character, but it wasn’t just “the Klaus show” that the movie was. Violet had plenty of great intelligent and powerful moments as well. Sunny was a bit of a conundrum, but I enjoyed her very much. There were, in fact, subtitles for most, but not all of Sunny’s lines. Several moments had me screaming for how on point the lines were. All in all, the children are incredible, and in my opinion I think you all will love them too.
For Mr. Poe, I will be brief. I was only concerned about 2 things for his character: if he would be ridiculously inept, and if he would constantly be coughing like in the books, unlike the Pettigrew-Poe (sorry, Timothy Spall’s Poe) who hardly coughed, if at all. Let me assure you both of those criteria are met in delightful ways.
I’ll get into Count Olaf and his troupe, as well as the rest of the guardians, more in depth in the separate reviews, but they were well-acted and enjoyable to see.
There were plenty of dark moments and plenty of dry humor, while also having genuine moments of heartfelt levity. There were a couple in-show musical pieces, the first being much less out of place than the second, but they both fit the flow in their own ways. The show had lots of elements from the book series, including plenty of direct quotes, and it was the best feeling in the world to see them come alive in brilliant ways.
The new elements of the story are also very fluidly directed into the heart of the story we know and doesn’t feel too overbearing in comparison. Rather instead I found myself wanting to see more of the mysterious members of VFD and their behind the scenes schemes and scrambling. Rest assured, those of you concerned about the spyglass, this show takes the concept that was introduced in the 2004 movie that wasn’t much more than a McGuffin, and brings it to a satisfying fruition. You hardly even question if it belongs there, because it works so seamlessly.
I would rate this season a 9.5/10 overall and I highly recommend it to fans of the book series and casual viewers!
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