By Tyler Banark

There hasn’t been much to watch new TV-wise lately, aside from Stranger Things season five. It has been bleak to the point where I reluctantly checked out the new HBO horror drama series It: Welcome to Derry. I will say that while I’m a fan of It (2017) and believe it is one of the best from that year, It: Chapter Two was a letdown and not as great. Then there’s It: Welcome to Derry, a TV show that didn’t give much to get hype over based on the trailers. Having watched the whole season now, I can firmly say that it’s likely the most mid thing I’ve seen from any Stephen King adaptation. The show’s progression was relatively slow: episodes 1-4 take their time, while episodes 5-7 showcase the best of what the show has to offer, leaving episode eight as a bland ending. This kind of display results in It: Welcome to Derry being one of the most okay pieces of TV I have seen in a while. 

Taking place 27 years before the events of the It novel, It: Welcome to Derry follows various groups of people in 1962 Derry, Maine, as they figure out the titular supernatural entity. The show does an honorable job of capturing the period in which it is set. It showcases the titular town as a diverse community where all races are affected by the ongoing events. Even though Derry is a fictional town, showrunners Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane made sure to note that the show’s events were set during the Civil Rights Movement. We also see the side where Native American people are fighting to keep their culture alive and land their own from the local and national governments. Lastly, there’s the character Rich, a Cuban-American boy who’s a part of this show’s Loser’s Club. 

While the cast is giving their all, I don’t think there was one singular performance in this series that stood out above the rest. The young actors are all good, with all new faces except Blake Cameron James (I recognize him from last year’s overlooked indie film We Grown Now). Everyone from his Will Hanlon to Clara Stark’s Lilly Bainbridge was fitting, but none of the actors or characters were as memorable or daring as the Loser’s Club we know from 27 years later. 

As for the adults, it’s the same: everyone’s doing enough but not going for something unique. I was glad to see Taylour Paige and Jovan Adepo working more, but even then, I’ve seen them in stronger roles. Chris Chalk has been getting the most noise, but that’s solely because he’s playing Dick Hallorann, a character from King’s other beloved horror piece, The Shining. While he does what he can with the role, I believe he won’t come anywhere near the efforts Scatman Crothers had in the 1980 film. Lastly, Bill Skarsgard is reprising his role as the clown we all know and fear: Pennywise. He’s written to be more terrifying to the characters than to the Loser’s Club, as he holds nothing back when it comes to terrorizing everyone. The scares are more graphic, and Skarsgard plays the character more as a force of evil, plain and simple, rather than as a sort of comic relief who’s also fearful. 

For the most part, everything about It: Welcome to Derry is unamusing. The writing is plain, and the cinematography is bland. The effects are passable, but in remembrance of WandaVision, it looks ugly in the finale. Furthermore, the show introduces us to the majority of the characters we hope to grow with in the premiere, but right as we get comfortable with three of them, they’re killed off and replaced by a couple of others. This writing choice felt like a waste of time, and it also didn’t help that we never heard from them again for the rest of the season. What was the point of making audiences care about Phil, Teddy, and Susie when they’ll be killed off right out of the gate? The biggest highlight I took away from It: Welcome to Derry was how unsettling its opening title sequence is. By blending Patience and Prudence’s A Smile and a Ribbon with cute cartoon visuals and references only King fans will notice, the sequence is wholesome but turns dark in the blink of an eye. 

If anything, It: Welcome to Derry, and see another shot taken for Stephen King material on the small screen. It may not work the way I hoped, but it did provide a lovely stretch of scares and a bigger stage for certain actors. What does Fuchs, Kane, and Andy Muschietti are going to do next with the material? I don’t know, as there hasn’t been any word yet as to whether a new season is in the works or if it’s going to be scrapped. Either way, it won’t have much of an impact on me personally, but if another season is on its way, PLEASE make it more interesting. I’d have to be convinced pretty harshly to have any interest, so come on, HBO, let’s kick things up a notch. 

2 1/2 stars