A Series of Unfortunate Events: "And Don't Forget Your Enormous Fortune"

If anyone can do justice to a source material, it’s Netflix. Now, I haven’t actually read the books but I have seen how people felt the 2004 film adaptation didn’t quite do them right. Which is fair, I personally loved the movie, yet the opportunity to bring this wonderful, weird tale to the small screen is nothing to sniff at.

The first two episodes, adapting the first book ‘The Bad Beginning’, are similar in style and tone to the Jim Carrey film, yet ultimately fit in more plot and character nuance than their predecessor. Which is exactly the sort of thing you want in a show, especially one that is so steeped in gothic fairy tale trappings.

Also, remarkably, they manage to isolate the individual story elements whilst creating a more overarching narrative. I count vouch for this being an aspect of the source, yet I’m impressed that there’s room for the more in-depth story as well as a more rigorous depiction of Lemony Snicket.

What surprised me, however, was just how laugh-out-loud funny this show is. It’s not just Neil Patrick Harris, toning down the stylings of Count Olaf, that brings the laughs but most characters throughout the first two episodes get at least one great line or moment.

As soon as Olaf states “And don’t forget your enormous fortune” as he ushers the orphans into his home, I was in and laughing my ass off. It’s harder than you think to produce laughs from such dark material, but this is a story that doesn’t treat kids like marshmallows and, like the film, doesn’t lie to them about what’s in the darkness.

The sly jokes help to alleviate the grim story of the Baudelaire orphans and the excellent cast nail the Burton style gravitas associated with the genre. It’s a balance that could easily fail yet is done practically perfect here.

I’m calling it. Netflix will do either His Dark Materials or Harry Potter down the line.

Some of my favourite lines from ‘A Bad Beginning’:

“Remarkable woman, flammable”

“The shampoo is not tear free. If anything it encourages tears”

“I apologise for the noise. I told them to cry using their inside voices”

“I don’t have time to learn a language besides whatever I am speaking right now”

“Plus I’ve had to reschedule a haircut several times”