Chris Chalk in 'It: Welcome to Derry.' Brooke Palmer/HBO Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment Logo text If you appreciate a good understatement, Kimberly Guerrero's Rose utters a real doozy partway through the fourth episode of HBO's It: Welcome to Derry. Rose, local small businesswoman and member of the Indigenous tribe protecting secrets about the titular Maine town, explains to newcomer Charlotte Hanlon (Taylour Paige), "Derry is a beautiful place, but things do happen from time to time. Never a bad idea to keep the people you love close." It: Welcome to Derry The Bottom Line Pennywise but pound foolish. Airdate: 9 p.m. Sunday, October 26 (HBO)Cast: Jovan Adepo, Taylour Paige, Chris Chalk, James Remar, Stephen Rider, Madeleine Stowe, Rudy Mancuso and Bill SkarsgårdCreators: Andy Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti and Jason Fuchs That's about as close as any Derry resident can get to saying, "Come for our open-minded New England values, stay because you were butchered by a killer clown." Forgetting Derry's communal traumas is as much a part of the town's firmament as the scenic canals, the nearby Air Force base where Charlotte's hubby Leroy (Jovan Adepo) has been newly posted, and the dilapidated house at 29 Neibolt Street. This forgetfulness, which has a supernatural origin, abets the monstrous tragedies that befall Derry every 27 years and it fuels It: Welcome to Derry, a bluntly effective frightfest that too often gets its scares through repetitiveness rather than creativity. Related Stories TV Creepy Clowns Appear in Cities Around the Globe to Promote HBO's 'It: Welcome to Derry' TV 'It: Welcome to Derry' Executive Producer Andy Muschietti and Team on How Prequel Builds on Unanswered Questions in Films and Book Developed by Andy Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti and Jason Fuchs, It: Welcome to Derry is a companion series/prequel to Muschietti's two-part film adaptation, which translated Stephen King's epic novel by removing all of its structural and thematic complexity. Instead of weaving a nuanced interlocking story built on nostalgia and memory, Muschietti delivered a decent period-set childhood romp that wasn't bad, and then an autonomous present-day sequel saddled with nearly all the book's narrative flaws, somehow made even worse. The book, probably still my pick as King's scariest novel if not his best, is overpacked with additional flashbacks and interludes that could have been fodder for multiple seasons of television. What's most peculiar about It: Welcomes to Derry, then, is that 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. I sometimes liked It: Welcome to Derry, but mostly because it reminded me of a thing I love, not because of much that it actually does. The body of the series begins in April of 1962, four months after one of those "things" that happen in Derry from time to time. The "thing" is shown in a deliciously gory prologue that relies heavily on the film version of The Music Man, a movie released in June 1962, one of many things about the timeline that you don't want to think too hard about. Suffice it to say, without spoiling, that children aren't safe in Derry. It's a less-than-ideal place, then, for Charlotte and Leroy, a Korean War hero (another temporal detail that doesn't entirely work) with a unique condition, to bring their son Will (Blake Cameron James). Leroy soon meets the base's commanding officer, General Shaw (James Remar), and fellow airman Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk), who has his own unique condition that's already well known to fans of The Shining. A Black family's move into a traditionally white space made for an effective set-up in the intriguing, if slightly heavy-handed Amazon horror anthology Them, but here the racial undertones are limited to some tossed-off dialogue, playing second fiddle to what's happening on the base and in surrounding environs. The main story is a straight-up rehash of the Losers Club from the book, the juvenile adventures that so thoroughly inspired Stranger Things. Mike gets to Derry High School and soon meets an assortment of outcasts, including Lilly (Clara Stack), who spent time at the Juniper Hill Asylum after the untimely death of her father; Ronnie (Amanda Christine), whose father is the projectionist at the local movie theater; Lilly's bestie Margie (Matilda Lawler), desperate to be popular and prone to saying things like "ginchy." Awful things are transpiring in Derry and some of the outcasts soon begin poking around and, because kids have open imaginations, they're relatively chill when voices start coming out of the sewers and fingers start poking up from the bathroom drains. "It sounds impossible, but maybe it's just improbable," observes Teddy (M