#WelcomeToDerry season 1

In 1962, a group of kids encounter"it". Not Pennywise, because that hasn't been established yet. Just some thing. The pilot is okay, but it kinda throws me off, because almost all the kids they establish in the first episode get killed off violently, so by episode two, we're back to square one.

The show deals with the group of kids facing this terror while no one believes them. The military is also involved, led by James Remar as they hunt for this source of this fear to weaponize it. Classic military motive. Among the army grunts is Doc Halloran, a notable psychic they use to try to find this thing.


So there's the concept in a nutshell. I personally wasn't thrilled with the recent IT movies. Chapter 1 was okay, but Chapter 2 was bad, and I much prefer the original Tim Curry version. This new series tries way too hard, and the CGI is overkill. You want to scare me? Yeah, throw some CGI at me to completely kill my immersion! Plus, they'll try to play with your emotions in such a forced way, you'll be rolling your eyes waiting for the "gut-wrenching" scenes to fuck off already.

Doc was well-casted, but his psychic shennanigans get boring after a while. It seems like James Remar has a significant arc coming, but that turns to drek in the finale. Skarsgard still pulls it off well enough, but I don't find him scary, especially when they throw a heaping amount of CGI over all of his scenes. And when it comes down to it, I don't really like any of the main kid characters. The main girl always has that stupid look on her face, and I already forgot most everybody else.

It seems like it's all negative, huh? Well, I will say one thing I loved: the opening title sequence is great. I love the little girl's song and prosperous old fashion town montage into decay.

But back to the negative! The whole final episode was too apocalyptic, with so much damn CGI and fake fog that I zoned right the fuck out. I can't even tell you how they defeated the clown. I'm sick of Stranger Things and this show is too inspired by it. That whole end aesthetic is trying to be its own version of the upside-down and I don't want any part of it.

The series is primed for 2 more seasons. Will I be watching? Only if I'm bored as shit!