On Friday, January 13, 2017, Netflix premiered its own adaptation of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, a series of novels about three children who become orphans and then undergo many unfortunate events. Netflix’s choice to premiere the show on Friday the 13th is incredibly fitting due to the series’ spooky nature.

Many viewers grew up reading the novels and were ecstatic to learn that Netflix was bringing their childhood to life. There was a movie adaptation of the novels which came out back in 2004; however, many readers were disappointed by the movie and craved something more.

Netflix’s adaption of A Series of Unfortunate Events was a huge interest as soon as it was announced. Many people followed Netflix’s Twitter and Facebook updates regarding the show because of how excited they were. When the show finally was released on Netflix many viewers binge-watched the show in its entirety that day.

The show includes an outstanding cast featuring actors such as Neil Patrick Harris, Cobie Smulders, and Patrick Warburton. Harris plays the dastardly Count Olaf who is to blame for many of the children’s’ misfortunes. Harris does an excellent job portraying Count Olaf’s wickedness – Harris is nearly unrecognizable underneath all of his makeup.

The show’s first season is 8 episodes long and covers the first four novels of the original series. Each novel is split up into 2 episodes which allows ample time to explore all the little details which are typically overlooked when novels are turned into movies or television shows. The first two episodes cover A Bad Beginning, which is the name of the first novel in the series. These episodes introduce the viewer to the Baudelaire children and their misfortune. The first episode opens with the children enjoying a day at the beach, and having their enjoyable day crushed with the terrible news of their parents’ demise. The Baudelaires are then brought to their recently destroyed home and are shown that they have quite literally lost everything they ever owned. Their quirky lawyer takes the children in and does not treat them kindly – he forces the three children to share one twin bed together. The Baudelaires are then introduced to their new guardian and are filled with high hopes. However, upon meeting this man, the children’s hopes are promptly crushed. Their new guardian turns out to be the dastardly Count Olaf who treats the children quite terribly. Count Olaf’s house is not only scary in appearance, but is also incredibly run down.

Following this episode, the children continue to experience Count Olaf in all of his wickedness and are presented with new misfortunes every day. The series received incredibly positive feedback, more specifically it received a rating of 93% from Rotten Tomatoes. Fans of the original novel series are extremely thankful for Netflix’s adaptation as it does the series much more justice than the movie adaptation did. Viewers are also excited to see what happens next with the series because it only explored four of the thirteen novels.
Netflix has done an outstanding job with A Series of Unfortunate Events, and will hopefully continue to satisfy viewers.