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A Series Of Unfortunate Events Season 3 Gets Trailer, Premiere Date

Netflix has saved the worst for last.

The streaming giant dropped a teaser trailer today for the third and final season of A Series of Unfortunate Events, the darkly comic series based on the childrens' novels by Daniel Handler, AKA Lemony Snicket. The season's seven episodes will adapt the final four books in the series, and will premiere on Netflix on January 1, 2019.

The trailer features Neil Patrick Harris (as the villainous Count Olaf) and Patrick Warburton (as narrator Snicket) directly addressing the viewer, offering up somewhat conflicting accounts of the unfortunate events that have transpired thus far. They both, however, promise to reveal the ultimate fates of the beleaguered Baudelaire children — as well as the meaning behind the mysterious initials V.F.D., which have appeared in multiple contexts throughout the second season.

Published between 1999 and 2006, Handler's book series was a resounding success, having sold over 65 million copies worldwide. The first attempt at a live action adaptation, the 2004 Jim Carrey starrer Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, was meant to jump-start a film franchise — but the $140 million dollar picture failed to make back its budget domestically, and plans for future installments were subsequently scrapped. 

The Netflix incarnation, however, has been a critical darling and has hooked viewers with its dark and quirky tone, not to mention the performance of Harris as Olaf. A distant relative of the Baudelaire children who sets his sights on the family's fortune after they're orphaned, Olaf habitually makes use of terrible disguises in transparent attempts to fool the children, giving Harris ample opportunities to chew scenery as if it's going out of style. 

Speaking with Variety about the role, Harris said, "I imagine Olaf as a Shakespearean actor and Wile E. Coyote. Once he gets his eye on a prize, he's very myopic. I struggle with how to play a bad actor especially when Olaf is playing different characters. Then it's Neil playing Olaf as a bad actor playing a character in a bad performance."

Harris went on to elaborate about his supreme level of trust in producer-director Barry Sonnenfeld, who he said can be relied upon to "choose a take that doesn't embarrass [him]." Sonnenfeld is no stranger to quirky humor; he helmed all three Men in Black movies, and worked as a producer on two separate TV incarnations of The Tick.

Loyal viewers are already quite familiar with the series' singularly weird tone, and the trailer for season 3 promises more of the same. For those uninitiated, now would be a good time to catch up — just don't get your hopes up for season 4, because it's not happening. The series is an extremely faithful adaptation of its source material, and as with Handler's novels, all good things must (unfortunately) come to an end.