Slightly late to the party, but as a huge fan of the books, I've just gotten through watching the first season. On the whole, I found this show a little disappointing.
Disliked:
-On the whole I thought the young actors they cast as the Baudelaire Orphans weren't very convincing and a lot of the time seemed thoroughly overwhelmed with the material, although they have shown (very gradual) signs of improvement.
-Neil Patrick Harris made for a very poor Count Olaf. I found his performance far too comical and cartoony, without projecting even so much of an ounce of menace. Although a darkly-comic character on occasion, Count Olaf is the kind of character who you could easily see happily carving up a group of children with a butcher's knife. You never once get such an aura of menace from Harris' rendition of the character, who seems much more interested in delivering punchlines like he's on a particuarly weak episode of How I Met Your Mother.
-Tonally, I think the show is far too whimsical and light...unable to conjure up the almost palpable sense of despair that proved so fundamental to the books. You never get the feeling the children are in any real danger (for instance, take the sequence where Aunt Josephine's house is collapsing, and Klaus is doing inexplicably Matrix cartwheels to whacky music).
-Some very off-putting CG work, especially in relation to Sunny.
Liked:
-Much like with the 2004 film, I felt the series absolutely nailed the quasi-surrealist, timeless aesthetic of the world. Some astonishing set and prop design work.
-Although I ultimately disliked a lot of the performers, I thought Aasif Mandvi was fantastic as Uncle Monty as was Usman Ally as the Hook Handed Man.
REALLY disliked:
-Alfre Woodard. I've enjoyed her in previous roles, but she delivered an astonishingly poor performance as Aunt Josephine. There are certain kinds of actors who seem to feel they don't need to put in much effort when they're performing for children's shows, and I think that was very much the case here.
