Netflix's 'A Series Of Unfortunate Events' Will End After Season 3 & We're Crushed

The lackluster 2004 movie adaptation of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events was probably one of the biggest disappointments for your 12-year-old self, but the Netflix show covering the entire bestselling series has definitely made up for those feelings since. Launching in January 2017, the show has already adapted the first four books of the series, and Season 2, debuting later this month, will cover the next four. With 13 total books in the series, series star and producer Neil Patrick Harris previously confirmed that the show will finish after Season 3. So, with little time left in the series, when does A Series of Unfortunate Events Season 3 premiere?

The show's 10-episode second season will follow the three Baudelaire orphans through Books 5-9: The Austere Academy, The Ersatz Elevator, The Vile Village, The Hostile Hospital, and The Carnivorous Carnival. Set to premiere on Netflix on March 30, 2018, Season 2 was officially confirmed only two months after the first season was released last year. A Series of Unfortunate Events was renewed for a third season shortly after, which wasn't too surprising for fans, as the layout of Season 1 suggested that future seasons could easily adapt the entire book series within a year or so.

With a little more than a year between the Netflix launches of Seasons 1 and 2, a release date for Season 3 has yet to be announced. Sources say that wrapping up the show in three seasons was always Netflix's goal, and Harris, who plays Baudelaire nemesis Count Olaf, revealed that Season 3 will only have seven episodes:

It was always the plan to do [just] three seasons, which I really liked. It makes me feel like we’re doing a specific piece of art, as opposed to just hoping that the zeitgeist holds us up for as many seasons as people can stomach.

In my middle school prime of reading through the original series, I definitely had a soft spot for the books that Season 2 will explore. Intriguing settings and learning more about the secret organization haunting the Baudelaires made Books 5-9 absorbent fun without being too depressing. The four books reserved for Season 3 – The Slippery Slope, The Grim Grotto, The Penultimate Peril, and The End – are considerably darker and more intense than previous stories. That's saying something, since the title A Series of Unfortunate Events might as well be next to the word "grim" in the dictionary.

While TV adaptations of books often try to veer away from the original storyline and experiment with plots, such likely won't be the case for end of A Series of Unfortunate Events. Talking to TV Guide, Harris emphasized that the show's creative team has always stuck close to the books:

We're three seasons all in. We've intentionally been very truthful and factual and loyal to the books. We've added a few characters that aren't in the books, we've added some songs that you probably couldn't put into the books, but for the most part we're sticking to the structure of what already worked.

According to TVLine, Season 3 is currently filming, which may mean that we'll see it on Netflix sooner rather than later. The addition of brand new characters was recently teased when Girls star Allison Williams joined the cast in a "mystery role." Netflix didn't explain the specifics of her character, but announced that Williams would first appear in Season 2 and return for the final season. Cue the fan theories!

Season 2 of A Series of Unfortunate Events premieres on Netflix on March 30, 2018. Season 3 is underway, but it looks like we won't have to wait nearly another year for its debut. That will definitely make up for the fact that the show is ending soon.