Stephen King’s works are no stranger to long-form television, with perhaps the most famous being 1990’s It, featuring Tim Curry as child-eating monster Pennywise. Now, the killer clown returns to the small screen with It: Welcome to Derry, a prequel series based on the 2017 and 2019 film adaptations. The question, though, isn’t just who’ll survive their run-in with It, but can the story stand on its own?
Set in early 1962 during one of It’s feeding periods, we begin with young Matty Clements (Miles Ekhardt) sneaking out of his broken home into a screening of The Music Man. Considering the series’ premise, it’s not giving too much away to say Matty isn’t long for this world. What fate awaits him, while wholly created by the show’s writers, could easily fit in one of King’s books, adhering to his theory of going for terror, then horror, then the gross-out. While it lacks the iconic simplicity of poor Georgie’s death at the beginning of the first movie, it more than makes up for it with inventiveness and visceral, gross-out horror.
That just leaves the need for terror. And — from the lack of attention Derry’s citizens pay to bullies beating up children to the racism faced by the Black characters — there’s plenty to go around. Welcome to Derry does what It and the best of King’s work do: contrast the supernatural horrors with the mundane ones. For young Lily Bainbridge (Clara Stack), it’s the grief over the death of her father and her resulting institutionalizing at Juniper Hill Asylum that make facing her fellow high school students so challenging. Will Hanlon (Blake Cameron James) worries that his Air Force pilot father will die in a plane crash, and Ronnie Grogan (Amanda Christine) deals with the guilt of her mother dying in childbirth and, after the end of the first episode, her father being taken in as a suspect in the deaths of some of Derry’s children. And speaking of the kids, don’t get too attached to all of them. Unlike the movies’ heroes, none of the kids featured here are guaranteed to reach adulthood beyond Will (father of the film’s Losers Club member Mike). This helps give the series a needed edge in tension while combating the prequel problem of viewers knowing most of how this story will play out, including that Pennywise will survive into the 1980s and beyond.
And speaking of the titular killer clown, the show, as of Episode 4, has yet to fully reveal It’s most memorable form beyond brief teases and glimpses. A wise choice, giving the show a sense of escalation. Though it does mean that one of the most memorable parts of the movies isn’t around yet and that previews for upcoming episodes featuring his return played by big-screen Pennywise Bill Skarsgård, have a tense, even fun energy the series so far lacks.
But the series isn’t averse to some prequel problems. For one thing, we already know what Pennywise’s deal is, so a lot of the time we’re watching characters catch up to the audience. Another is giving an origin and explanation to things that didn’t need one. Does it really matter why Pennywise stays within the confines of Derry beyond the town being its hunting grounds?
Despite the length of the book and films, It is a relatively focused story, primarily following the children hunted by Pennywise. Here, we’ve got the children, a set of parents, the military, and Dick Holloran (Chris Chalk) from The Shining, expanding his role from an off-handed mention in the book. This wouldn’t be so bad if the children’s storylines weren’t so much more immediate and tension-filled, as they are It’s primary targets. That said, focusing only on them would risk being a retro-rehash of the movie, and some of the adults have had previous encounters with It, giving their scenes some weight. Still, this leads the series to feel wobbly in terms of focus and dramatic thrust but not so much that the viewer is ever lost or bored, especially since each episode has at least a handful of appearances by It, all but one of which are memorable, terrifying, and grotesque.
Still, I devoured each episode as quickly as I could get them and plan to keep doing so with all future ones. So, while the show doesn’t exactly float to the top of King adaptations, it far from sinks into the sewers.
It: Welcome to Derry
Starring Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, Chris Chalk, and James Remar, with showrunners Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane. Based on the novel by Stephen King. Airing on HBO and HBO Max. Rated TV-MA.
