I've only watched the first of the 10 episodes, but this season is composed with the same loving attention as the first.

At its very best, it's as if TS Eliot had, somehow, had a hand in making Airplane. For sheer gleeful delight you won't find a rival on any screen near you this livelong year.

This gothic treat also offers a wicked line in absurdist humour, and the most gorgeously toybox-like set designs you'll find anywhere outside a Wes Anderson film.

It is with our deepest sympathies that we must inform you of a new season of A Series of Unfortunate Events and that it remains as delightfully absurd and quirky as the first season.

Season 2 undeniably brings the joys of Season 1 back to life, from the show's gorgeous aesthetic and spectacular guest stars with an evolution of its storytelling. It just doesn't do so as consistently as Season 1.

A Series of Unfortunate Events is one of the most lavish originals in Netflix's bottomless catalogue, created by fans, for fans. It might appear to be too obtuse for everyone's taste, but that's only because it is.

Harris shines in the series.

This is the real deal, not hipster-distance and disaffection. You can feel it every time a VFD member appears on screen and the orphans get a brief and inevitably tragic glimpse of hope.

However, a strong new supporting cast brings the kind of variety that made Season One so great, particularly 12-year-old Kitana Turnbull as unbearably snotty school girl Carmelita Spats in 'The Austere Academy'.

Snicket's books have always been dark, and somehow the Netflix series made them even darker. But A Series of Unfortunate Events still strikes that perfect balance between comedy and gloom.

Otherwise, it's unfortunate business as usual. The vibe is still firmly 'Gothic melodrama, but funny'. The wordplay is still inspired. And [Neil Patrick] Harris' Olaf is still an exuberant ham.

A Series of Unfortunate Events champions resilience. As much as it may revel in the miserable, the purpose of its own morbidity is to offer the assurance that hope lives in even the darkest of places.