In 2001, a little film called Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone came out. I don't think I have to tell what happen to that little film. All I will say is that it raked in to a tune of $974.8 million dollars. And besides being the pilot light for JK Rowling's eventual ego trip of adding useless canon, the film was a watershed moment in blockbuster cinema in the same way ET, The Avengers, and Paranormal Activity were.
By that, I mean after the release of Harry Potter came a slew of mediocre rip offs.
After Harry Potter's success, there was a gold rush where producers were getting rights to every single children's book series they can get their hands on. One of those being "A Series of Unfortunate Events" written by Daniel Handler.
I can't tell you how much I love Daniel Handler. If you want a weird blend of Monty Python, Douglas Adams, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, and the ramblings of a snobby nerd, then "A Series of Unfortunate Events" is for you.
At this point, I am getting tired of writing "A Series of Unfortunate Events." So for now on, I will be referring to it as Lemony Snicket.
Anyway, as a lad, the books were part of my nostalgia arguably more than the Harry Potter series. So as a kid, you can picture my excitement when a movie adaptation was coming out.
And then in 2004, it did. Annnnnnnd....well it was better than the Percy Jackson films.
But that didn't matter, because a sequel never came out. Despite the promise of a continuation, the second Lemony Snicket movie was stuck in pre-production hell. By the time I grew up, I made the unfortunate realization that anything beyond the Wide Window will ever see the silver screen which is a shame since my favorite books were everything after the Wide Window.
But ironically, a series of fortunate events began to occur. What happened? Well Netflix happened.
Yes, streaming services happened, and they happened big time. Streaming services brought in a Renaissance for entertainment where creators can take risks, be experimental, and resurrect shows that were thought to be dead.
Television in general was going, and is still going through, a golden era of content. Shows like the Walking Dead and Breaking Bad paved the way for even weirder shows like Atlanta.
The stars aligned. And from that, Lemony Snicket got the home it deserved giving us a show that was not only faithful to the source material but actually elevates it beyond the source material.
Though in fairness, the first season had a rocky start. Much like the original movie, the first season leaned more to the childish side than something you would see in say Prisoner of Azkaban to give an example. To put it in enigmatic and vague terms, it is not bad, but there is nothing there that takes it from good to great. This was most apparent in the new Count Olaf played by Neil Patrick Harris which leaned closer to the Jim Carrey performance than the character I pictured in the books (though Jim Carrey's performance was not bad). I wanted something evil and disgusting. I always saw Count Olaf as the Joker that you hate and love all at the same time. Like some of the best villains in story telling, Count Olaf carried the series and Jim Carrey nor Neil Patrick Harris in the first season did that.
It wasn't until a few episodes into the second season that the Lemony Snicket series went from "ehhh I'm digging it okay" to "this is the best thing ever..."
To not give the show all the credit, nostalgia and my knowledge of the books played a huge part in my enjoyment of season two and three. While I think the show is inventive and clever enough to warrant a watch regardless of your familiarity with the series, you are not going to be writing essays about it or putting it on your favorite TV shrine like I am.
I just realized that I have been writing for several paragraphs as if most of you know what I am blabbing on about. Quite frankly, it is rather difficult to explain to people what Lemony Snicket is and why it works without spoiling the surprise. I guess the best way to describe the Lemony Snicket series, much like the best children's stories, is that it feels effortless. Beyond being a weird mixture of Monty Python, Douglas Adams, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, and the random ramblings of a slightly snobby nerd, it is a show that doesn't treat its audience like morons. Much like the book, it pushes its audience rather than the other way around. It's a little rare to see a children's show challenge its audience since very few children's shows, even the good ones, do.
In short, everything gets better at around season 2. Again, the apparent example is Neil Patrick Harris who becomes funnier and darker in a way that perfectly represents my vision of Count Olaf. The performance evolves much like everything else which is what I believe makes good television. The Baudelaire children are great, the seemingly jump the shark moments in the later books are represented wonderfully, and it's genuinely funny despite retaining the childish humor we saw in the first season. All of this culminating in what will probably be my favorite television episode of 2019 which is the Penultimate Peril Part 1.
The Netflix show also strays away from the books in a few creative ways which helps makes certain admittedly unsavory parts in the books more enjoyable in the TV show. Maybe I just remember the books wrong, but I remember the books not explaining things correctly or not fleshing things out as well as the television series.
It was the ending that got me to write this blog post, because it was so perfect. When I saw the final shot, I thought about everything the Lemony Snicket series went through. Not just what the Baudelaire children went through, but the story as it tried to get adapted. I thought about what I went through in that time as well and realized how much has changed. I think I cried at the ending of the Lemony Snicket series the same way I cried at the end of Toy Story 3. Not only was it a well executed conclusion, but it was a conclusion to a part of my life that I cherish so much.
