A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS

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Images: Netflix
“Your parents have perished in a terrible fire. Perished means killed.”

Developed by: Mark Hudis and Barry Sonnenfeld
Run time: 42-64 Minutes
TV-PG

Delightful. I don’t even like using that word, yet here I am. A Series of Unfortunate Events is delightful.

I was into it as soon as Lemony Snicket, the onscreen narrator, appeared in a spooky brick tunnel lit only by a single match. Get this, it’s Patrick Warbuton. He’s the first in a line of fantastic casting choices that include Neil Patrick Harris as our villain, Count Olaf, and Joan Cusack as Olaf’s friendly neighbor, Justice Strauss.

The Count has adopted three recently orphaned siblings in an attempt to get to their inherited fortune. He’s selfish, vain, delusional, and cruel. He treats the children like slaves, manipulates everyone around him, and still finds time for a musical number now and then. All proper traits for a bad guy.

The show is real easy to look at, too. Every scene takes place on purposefully artificial and stylized sets that would be right at home in any Tim Burton film, yet the world never comes across as cold or contrived. There’s a lovely balance between the colorful pastels of the outside world and the relentless grays of Olaf’s deteriorating mansion.

I’ve been watching this in UHD. I haven’t been fully convinced that streaming can do full justice to 4k content, but many sequences in A Series of Unfortunate Events look damn near 3D.

Use your Netflix subscription to watch.