The Unfortunate Blogger

The Ersatz Elevator, part one

There is nothing better than having a place with a thousand rooms to play in, stairs to climb, and a dim street to shield you from the light coming from the sun. Well, there is. And that's a really good and fun episode. Unfortunately, this one didn't quite hit the mark. It wasn't the worst that I've seen, but...eh, how do I summarize it easily? It was...overwhelming. Cluttered. Fast. Forceful. Bizarre. A few cool things, mostly good things, but so many things in a blur that you can't keep up nor want to. What was good and bad? Well, I pretty much summarized it all, but here are some more specific things.

1) Esme's hair- I was about to mention this in the previous part, but due to spoilers, I was aware of this already. But Esme's hair is blonde in this series instead of brown. Honestly, while it's a very big deviation from the book, I think she looks good blonde. If you never read the book, I don't think you'd care much. If anything, she looks really sophisticated with blonde hair.

2) Esme- Speaking of Esme, I really like the way she was portrayed. She loves the things that are in, even if she doesn't like them personally. For example, she very clearly doesn't like fish since she starts gagging and turning up her nose several times. However, she eats it because it's in. She's obsessed with being rich and powerful. She wants to be the innest person around. She hurries everyone around so that they don't make her look bad. I really liked her performance.

3) Gunther- I think this is by far my favorite disguise from Count Olaf. In the book, I couldn't quite work in the 'please' in his sentences so that they flowed nice. This portrayal is done pretty spot on in my opinion. I liked the way he was dressed. I liked the accent. I liked the fan. I liked the cane and the sunglasses. I liked how he used his slowness to think of correct words as a way of appearing to have trouble with English. It was fantastic!

4) The pinstripe suits- I was a little concerned with how the suits were going to look since the book draws them in a gaudy kind of way and the Baudelaires have suits that don't fit them. But this was nicely done. The suits looked cool and they looked nice on all three children.

5) Getting in and out of the car just to go to a restaurant across the street- Esme getting disgusted with the Heron Houdini restaurant, getting back in the car, and then being let out immediately to look at Cafe Salmonella was hilarious! And then the conversation about driving all the way back there...that was pretty funny!

6) Jerome- Similar to Esme,I liked the actor for Jerome. He's the perfect doormat and simultaneously caring person seen in the books. He likes to make points, but doesn't feel like arguing with Esme all the way. It was perfect casting.

7) Jacquelyn is better at being secretive- This time she actually turns around to talk on the phone instead of diving under the desk. Much better. That's all I have to say. And I like when she convinces Mr. Poe to go out to eat at a fancy restaurant instead of going up in a helicopter, much to Poe's relief.

8) Jacques and Olivia Caliban- Now her name is mentioned in the series, so I can mention it. Library lady, a.k.a Olivia is still one of my favorite people in this series. And Jacques is pretty cool too. And there's this one scene where he's like, "You'll be attached to me", and I was like Aw, you two are kind of cute together.....But we already know what's about to happen to Jacques....

9) Mr. Poe isn't let into the penthouse without an appointment- Makes sense. These man-hunting policemen are being more careful. I like it. No complaints here.

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE ABOUT THIS EPISODE:

1) Gunther already being at the house- Remember when I mentioned in the beginning how everything in this episode was overwhelming, forceful, cluttered, fast, and bizarre? Well, this is just the beginning of all of this wacky mess. The Baudelaires get into the penthouse, meet their guardians, and BOOM! Count Olaf is already there. We barely had time to say 'how do you do?' and we already have an entry from the vicious count? I get if they want to change things up, but geez!

2) Jacques and Olivia are the worst at finding things- Yeah, a thorough search of each penthouse means just peeking into and maybe opening a window. Great job you two. VFD member and recruit of the year. Where did you train? I want to get your hide-and-seek skills!

3) Olivia is very quick to jump into a taxi with a complete stranger- Yeah, all they had to do was mention the Baudelaires and Quagmires in danger and say a few quoted lines from some books. And she decided to hop into a taxi with a nearly complete stranger. Must be one television crazed town to be willing to hop in the car with the first bookworm you see, Olivia Caliban.

4) Too many VFD people at both restaurants- I'm going to address this issue again. And by again I mean this happened in the second episode. VFD is an organization so secret that it took the Baudelaires thirteen books to just barely scratch the surface. And within this episode, there's Larry the waiter keeping Count Olaf in his seat and making references to a million things within one sentence, there's Jacquelyn having a secretary day to keep an eye and broadcast her spyglass in front of the Baudelaires, and then the lovebirds Jacques and Olivia peeking into every window with Olivia having little to no training in a measly attempt to rescue the Quagmire triplets. And it doesn't stop at Cafe Salmonella. Once they get into the Heron Houdini place, this confrontation and crazy blocking of Count Olaf gets worse and more complicated than need-be. Plus Jacquelyn was too obvious with her plans.

5) The Baudelaires are smarter than VFD- Speaking of useless, while Olivia and Jacques just do a quick peek-and-run climbing up the building, the Baudelaires manage to think of something interesting, sneak out of the restaurant, and get back to the penthouse in order to figure out how to find the Quagmires. And they do find them. I know the kids do better than the adults in the book, but VFD is trained in this stuff! Come on you guys!

6) The hot air balloon- In the book, the children use many ties found in Jerome's drawers to make a rope. Now while I like an update, I think it would have been better to just use the big rubber-band ball Esme had to make a rope. I don't know much about hot air balloons, but this seems like a not only risky way to get down an elevator, but also a not very probable way. What if the balloon failed? What if they tipped over and fell out? It just seemed like a not very useful plan in my opinion.

7) The song and dance combo- I like the Chase your schemes song at first, but it got kind of tedious after a while. The dances were a bit cringey, the choreography in the middle was bad, and...I don't know, the dancing didn't match the song. At all.

8) No down time- The one thing I think that's causing all this commotion is that there's no time to rest from the previous episode. Unlike the others where the kids spend some time figuring their new guardians out and getting used to the house, it's just, 'Welcome to you're new home!-Olaf!-VFD action-Quagmires!-Cliffhanger!' and that's it. There's no time to adjust and rest and calm down from the previous action. No way to catch your breath. I think that's why I felt this episode was just way too overwhelming. There's no time to breathe! Help!

9) The children wonder if Esme is in cahoots with Count Olaf- What annoys me about this is that not only is this their first thought as to how he got into the penthouse before they did, but that this is never brought up again. There's a brief scene where "Gunther" breaks a rope connecting to the chandelier, but that's it. What was the point of that? That was really annoying.

10) There is no transition- In the books, despite passing exams, they're expelled for skipping the S.O.R.E exercises with Olaf. In this episode....there's nothing. They're just suddenly at 667 Dark Avenue. And that's it. Well, why were they expelled? Did they choose to leave? Did Nero not want anymore Count Olaf problems? Did Esme arrange it because of the elevator shaft? WHY ARE THEY HERE???!!!! Plus, at what point did Esme and Olaf meet and conspire? Usually they show it. It's not here. I find that annoyingly odd.

And that was my review of this episode of The Ersatz Elevator. Hopefully the next one isn't too clunky, but we'll see how it goes.