Below are some thoughts on Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate
Events. I had read the books way back in the day and thought why not watch the
show in one night. There are spoilers because c’mon.
The Baudelaire orphans were okay but I never felt connected
to their struggle other than jeez what an unlucky bunch of kids. This isn’t an
indictment of the actor/actresses playing them but more on their characters.
They always seem to get out of everything so easily so I never felt like they
were ever in any danger. Plus they are super pretentious and rather cold and distant
which I will wildly assume is due to their rich kid upbringing. The fact that
Klaus looks and dresses like mini-Woody Allen isn’t helping matters much
either. Violet looks so similar to Emily Browning from the movie adaptation
that I wasn’t sure for a minute if the time space continuum had collapsed and
it was the same actress. Sunny was a baby and the biting scenes were fine so I’m
not going to pull the obnoxious move of critiquing a baby’s acting. I mean who does
that.
Count Olaf was the highlight and every scene he wasn’t in
for me was a drag. Neil Patrick Harris was everything I wanted this throw-back
mustache twirling villain to be and I felt myself sort of rooting for him as
much as I was calling him a piece of shit (lovingly of course). He even was
able to bring in some unsettling menace particularly when he put his arm over
Violet and said “he can touch anything he wants”, that’s creepy kid’s show or
not. Out of all his disguises I’d have to put the bumbling Stefano first just
for that ridiculous popcorn gag and the knife explanation. Shirley was
interesting in the way they went for the classic 40’s buxom beauty but she was not
fleshed out enough. They could have gone further with her. Captain Sham was the
best in terms of disguises but other than the spoon playing I found him to be
the weakest of the three. Plus why didn’t Sunny just bite off his peg leg
earlier? Come on baby!
It’s funny what I remember from the books and what I didn’t
when watching the series. I know they changed up the fourth book a bit and gave
Sir and Charles a discreet romantic relationship but other than that I spent
the whole series going “oh yeah I remember that sugar bowl thing and VFD means
something major”. All the Baudelaire guardians were great from Aasif Mandvi’s
cheerful but misguided Dr. Montgomery Montgomery to Alfre Woodward’s fearful
Aunt Josephine. My main problem with them is that they all chew up the scenery
and suck up all charisma from the bland Baudelaires (again more a problem with
their characterizations) that I wasn’t invested in the suffering of the kids. I
wanted to spend more time with the adults than those plucky orphans.
Seeing Patrick Warburton as Lemony Snicket was kind of
weird. I kept waiting from him to make a joke but kudos to him for playing
against character and playing a quasi-straight man/unreliable narrator type. It
took a bit to get used to, especially with all that dictionary word defining
early, but eventually he flowed well with the rest of the overqualified and
delightful adult cast.
Breaking the fourth wall has become an unwritten rule in
modern television apparently but this time I wasn’t annoyed with that trope.
Probably because I was under the spell of that the delightful Count Olaf. My
favorite instance came with Stephano preferring an evening of streaming long
form television to going to the movies and then finished the joke by
complaining to one of his henchmen about the matter on the phone in the next
scene. Well played NPH.
Mr. Poe is probably the real villain of the series. The
orphans are never wrong yet he refuses to listen to them. What the hell man?
Just once wouldn’t he think it would be prudent to listen these odd children
who somehow have been right about everything so far?
Good twist with Will Arnett and Colbie Smulders being the
parents of the Quagmire triplets. Didn’t see that one coming.
The real highlight of the series is Neil Patrick Harris
changing up the theme song for every episode. Let that man host the Tonys!
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