Friday, January 13, Netflix released the much anticipated Series of Unfortunate Events show, based off the book series by the same name. The show is 8 episodes long and covers the content in 4 of the 13 books (giving each book 2 episodes). This series is not a stranger to adaptation, however. Nickelodeon made a movie for the series in 2004 which starred Jim Carrey and Meryl Streep, and unfortunately was not received well by the audience and no sequel was ever made. Netflix hopes that their take on the book series does much better, and so far it looks like it has. Rotten Tomatoes has given it an impressive 92% (compared to the movie’s 72%), IMDB gave it an 8.5/10 (compared to the movie’s 6.8/10), and critics seem to be loving it. Senior Valerie Lochen said, “I really enjoyed it; Neil Patrick Harris was amazing.”

 Probably like a lot of you, I grew up on these books; I own all of them and have read them through multiple times. I was honestly very underwhelmed when I saw the film, and I hated that yet another book series was seemingly ruined by its movie adaptation. When I heard of the Netflix series, I was immediately hesitant. After witnessing fails of a TV show for The Mortal Instruments (which also followed a failed movie a couple years before), I was not going to get my hopes up. When I heard Neil Patrick Harris would play Count Olaf, I gained a little more hope, but my expectations still stayed low. After watching the series, I am still not sure where I stand on it. It is definitely better than its predecessor, but I do not know if it is what I would consider a hit. Senior Valerie Lochen said, “Neil Patrick Harris seriously killed it.”

 Compared to the movie, the series stayed a lot truer to the books, which I appreciated, and I recognized several lines that came word for word from the books. A lot of failed book-to-movie films are ruined simply by the fact that they do not stay close to the original story (Inkheart and The Scorch Trials are the first two that come to mind). But this series did, and it gained a lot of points in my book by doing so. The reason I remain unsure about the series is that it did not appear to know exactly where it wanted to go. Was it trying to be serious? Campy? It seemed to be somewhere in the middle for me. There were times when I thought it might be serious, but then they would throw in ridiculous humor that threw off the mood. Neil Patrick Harris was fabulous, as always, but an actor can only do as much as the script/storyline gives them. The child acting only appeared to be subpar to me as well, but it may just have been the script.

 The series is not bad by any means, but when you love a book series as much as I have loved this one, it can be difficult to measure up. There has been a limited number of franchises that have accomplished a successful transfer to screen, and very few can rank up with the likes of Harry Potter. Despite all of this, I still hope the show returns for a second season – if only to see if it figures itself out. In the show’s defense, the first four books were my least favorite of the series, so I hold out hope for my favorites: specifically The Carnivorous Carnival. So while the series was not incredible, it was steady enough to keep me watching, and I look forward to (hopefully) the next installment.