‘Events’ a series you can’t look away from
The irresistibly annoying theme song warns you to find something else to watch — anything but the tale of endless miseries befalling a trio of orphaned children awaiting you if you stick around beyond the credits.
Ignore the warning at your own peril — and by peril I mean the certainty that “A Series of Unfortunate Events” will sweep you up in its droll, comedic pseudomelodrama.
The eight-episode series, available on Netflix on Friday, Jan. 13 (of course), is based on the books of the same title by Lemony Snicket, previously thought to be a Bay Area author named Daniel Handler but now revealed to be actor Patrick Warburton, who narrates the unfortunate events that occur in the young lives of Klaus (Louis Hynes), Violet (Malina Weissman) and the most erudite infant this side of Stewie Griffin, Sunny Baudelaire
(Presley Smith). Handler wrote the screenplay and appears a few times in the cameo role of “fish head salesperson”— clearly a status leap for a mere author.
OK, it’s true: Warburton is just pretend pretending to be Lemony Snicket: Handler is the real pretend Snicket and has done belated adaptive justice to his own creation after the bloated 2004 feature film with Jim Carrey as Count Olaf. Handler’s screenplay is among the stars of the Netflix version, replicating what has made the 13 “Unfortunate Events” books resonate with both children and adults: a story and characters created with an understanding that kids are more sophisticated than kiddy lit often gives them credit for being, and that adults never completely leave a love for silly humor in their past.
The basic plot is simple enough: The Baudelaire orphans will have access to an enormous fortune once Violet reaches the age of maturity, and the wily, evil Count Olaf (Neil Patrick Harris) is ready to stop at nothing to get his bony hands on the loot. Although he is an irredeemably bad actor, Olaf is able to fool adults into believing he is several other people as one scheme after another is foiled by the children’s clear-eyed intelligence.
His impersonations include Stephano, an assistant herpetologist to Montgomery Montgomery (Aasif Mondvi), sailor Captain Sham and zaftig receptionist Shirley St. Ives, among others. The only way the children can get the adults to believe all of these people are really Olaf is to reveal the tattoo of an eye on his ankle. But even that is more difficult than it appears.
The hilariously painful puns and literary references, both obscure and obvious, comprise the devilish details that bring the new adaptation to life. Handler has tossed in a few more recent references, like Uber, just to keep the fan page scribes busy for a while.
Harris is insufferably great as Olaf in all his guises. In fact, he doesn’t just offer one great performance: He offers one after another, each one graced by exquisite detail, voicing Captain Sham like Sean Connery with ill-fitting dentures (keep an ear out for the pronunciation of the word “sit”), switching seamlessly from his Olaf voice to the differently accented speech of, say, Stephano, making his own features more rubbery than the prosthetics applied to his face.
The young actors playing the children are equally good. Of course, their characters are more adult than any actual adults, but Hynes, Presley and Weissman provide the heart of the story without ever becoming cloying. Presley gets the best “lines,” although she’s too young to speak: Sunny’s “commentary” is translated in subtitles that are among the funniest lines of the show.
Also contributing excellent work in supporting roles are Alfre Woodard, as the children’s terminally terrified Aunt Josephine (she’s most afraid of real estate brokers — clearly a nod to Handler’s Bay Area roots), Catherine O’Hara as mad optometrist Dr. Georgina Orwell (literary pun alert), Joan Cusack as Justice Strauss, and K. Todd Freeman as the banker Mr. Poe.
Warburton make an effectively droll narrator, stepping into the scenes like a latter-day Rod Serling. Barry Sonnenfeld’s direction is just a tad listless in the early episodes, but picks up appropriately midway through.
“Unfortunate Events” is not only binge-worthy, it’s bingedemanding. Whether you’re a kid or just a child at heart, you’ll be giggling so much at the mock-melodramatic high jinks of each episode, you’ll go right on to the next. That last thing you’ll want to do is to “look away” from “A Series of Unfortunate Events.” David Wiegand is an assistant managing editor and the TV critic of The San Francisco Chronicle and co-host of “The Do List” every Friday morning at 6:22 and 8:22 on KQED FM, 88.5 FM in San Francisco, 89.3 FM in Sacramento. Follow him on Facebook. Email: dwiegand@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Wait What_TV