A Series Of Unfortunate Events Season 2 Review: 7 Ups & 3 Downs

Downs...

3. The Dangerous Drag

The second season rigidly sticks to the established formula of every book being adapted over two episodes, with the season having ten in total.

While it's an understandable decision, especially since one of the reasons the movie failed was its attempt at cramming three books into one film, it does mean that some of the entries are noticeably padded out and there's some vexatious fable dragging in a few of this episodes, without enough plot to fill two instalments (The Vile Village is perhaps the most egregious example of this). They're hamstrung by the format, which perhaps would've been better suited to an hour for each book (meaning a tight 13-episode run).

In some cases the invented plotlines do help cover for it, but even with the episodes playing around in length there's not always enough of a story to cover two episodes, at least not until the mystery starts expanding and the stories get bigger in the final four instalments (which, again, is how it goes with the books).