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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
14
Mixed:
15
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews
The GuardianOct 27, 2025
Season 1 Review:
It: Welcome to Derry is not going to trouble the top tier of TV adaptations in the King pantheon (including the 1990 version of It wherein Tim Curry’s Pennywise made coulrophobics of us all) but it is solidly entertaining stuff – on a par with Under the Dome, say, rather than the dismal recent offering that was The Institute – and should give fans the nightmares of their dreams.
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Oct 24, 2025
Season 1 Review:
The kids — also including Marge (Matilda Lawler, the secret weapon of “Station Eleven” and “The Santa Clauses”), Lilly’s socially desperate friend — are the strongest element in the story and the show; their energy overwhelms the obviousness of the narrative, and whatever takes us away from them, into pace-slowing side plots, is time less well spent.
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Radio TimesOct 22, 2025
Season 1 Review:
For horror fans, and those who consider themselves to be Constant Readers (apparently that's the name of Stephen King's fandom), it will likely satisfy, especially as we head into the Halloween season. But if you're tuning in to Welcome to Derry and expecting to return to exactly the same sewers as It Chapters 1 & 2, perhaps you won't be floating too.
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Oct 22, 2025
Season 1 Review:
“Welcome to Derry” feels like a lesser imitation of the Netflix phenomenon ["Stranger Things"] in almost every way. “Things” mythology and monsters are cooler, the characters are generally richer with more complex psychology, and the evocation of smalltown 1980s isn’t as hamfisted (nor anachronistic) as this show’s early ‘60s. .... The Muschietti team has certainly set up potentially intriguing storylines in these first five chapters, so who knows where it could all go.
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Oct 22, 2025
Season 1 Review:
For the first five episodes, Welcome to Derry fluctuates between dialogue-heavy scenes that incrementally further parallel mysteries (which we know must eventually lead to Pennywise in the sewers) and overwrought, traumatic backstories that force actors into a uniform state of skittishness and desperation.
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IndieWireOct 22, 2025
Season 1 Review:
Episodes strain to touch on those fan-favorite aspects almost as often as they work to expand the Stephen King universe from within (even incorporating a missing kid plot reminiscent of “It: Chapter One”). But an engine fueled by filling in the blanks isn’t built to last, and these dots, once connected, prove tacky and sour.
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Oct 27, 2025
Season 1 Review:
It’s both surprising and ultimately frustrating, then, that Welcome to Derry isn’t so much a further adaptation of the novel as a half-baked attempt at a prequel, an elaborate but ultimately vapid work of King fanfiction dumped into an entertainment landscape that already boasts no shortage of such endeavors.
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LooperOct 22, 2025
Season 1 Review:
It does have a decent story structure and execution, but also a sameness to other similar series in the genre that makes it impossible for it to stand out in any real way. It's just another installment to an IP that will likely satisfy die-hard fans of Stephen King's novel (and its numerous adaptations who are hungry for more details and backstories, but barely anybody else who isn't as obsessed and devoted to it.
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RogerEbert.comOct 22, 2025
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