The series is promising in the beginning, with an opening theme song sung by Neil Patrick Harris (like if Muse wrote a self-aware Broadway tune) and intriguing aesthetics, painted like a very cloudy Wes Anderson movie. Meanwhile, a secret society is hinted at, phrases like “a conundrum of esoterica” are thrown about, and the lives of the parents is revealed to be a mystery itself. Montgomery Montgomery) tries to protect them. Now, Olaf’s role changes from host to hunter, as the scheming actor tries to get to the children, while a new guardian ( Aasif Mandvi’s reptile-loving Dr. Every now and then, the narrator Lemony Snicket (played by Patrick Warburton) appears to tell us how despairing things are, and will continue to be.īy episode three, the series gets into full swing by going to book two in the series, The Reptile Room, and by showing that it’s apparently going to work with the original books in more detail than the original film (which combined three books into one movie). The children find some solace in Olaf’s neighbor, the cheery and alone Justice Strauss ( Joan Cusack), who has a library that provides answers and ideas that will help them get out of Olaf’s control. As their new guardian, he treats them horribly, and, with his theatre troupe friends, devises ways to get the money, or at least make the Baudelaire’s lives a living hell.

The parents’ will makes them stay with the closest relative, which is the snidely, cruel wannabe actor Count Olaf ( Neil Patrick Harris), who just wants the inheritance the children will be owed when Violet turns 18.

He directs four new episodes of this series, including the pilot, which puts anyone who read the first book or saw the original film into a familiar place: the story of the three Baudelaire children, oldest sister Violet ( Malina Weissman), her brother Klaus (Louis Hynes) and their baby sibling Sunny, who are orphaned by a freak tragedy that burns down their parents’ mansion with Mother and Father inside. One of the biggest 'Snicket'-heads out there is clearly Barry Sonnenfeld, who executive produced the original 2004 film starring Jim Carrey and Meryl Streep, and has now decided to take things into his own hands. I spent a lot of time watching “A Series of Unfortunate Events” trying to cozy into its tone, which I suspect won’t be a problem for those already familiar with the material, or those who just want to see a particularly grim fairy tale.

The unfortunate events