It: Welcome to Derry

A strong return to an imperfect horror world. Turns out, clowns are still very upsetting on the small screen.

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.

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.

Thanks mainly to the performances of Paige, Adepo, and Chalk, IT: Welcome to Derry is not without its storytelling merits, even if none of them are all that scary.

As is, we’ve got some effective scares, but acting, and especially writing, that can’t live up to the series’ pedigree.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

The creators have opted to basically replicate the core plot of the movie/book and fill in the gaps with what feel like third-tier King devices and clichés.

Welcome to Derry has flashes of good ideas buried within the franchise machinery, but without the novel’s sturdy spine, it never stands upright.

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.

It’s a show that’s too often stuck in first gear, only coming to life in its big, surreal set pieces and lacking almost everywhere else. It also suffers from that common plague of the streaming era: It takes forever to get where it’s obviously going.