#it-welcome-to-derry

#it-welcome-to-derry

I got some flak last week for complaining about the increasingly notable absence of Pennywise on It: Welcome to Derry, but my objection is less about missing Bill Skarsgård (though I do!) and more about the ways this series - by virtue of being stretched out over eight hours - is forced to drag out its storytelling. And while this week's episode is better than the last, I'm struck even more strongly by a sense of wheel-spinning.

Chris Chalk hopes people see many different spirits within Dick Hallorann. In It: Welcome to Derry, Chalk stars as the same character the late Scatman Crothers played in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, the kind old-timer who has the uncanny ability to sense the otherworldly. Naturally, Chalk's performance has homages to Crothers, but there are other familiar faces hidden within it too. He put a little Viola Davis in there. And Denzel Washington. And a dash of Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Despite their recent rise in prevalence, prequels are often a bad fit for television. Serialized TV is built for lengthy, evolving stories; stories that can grow from season to season; that can begin as one thing and end as something else entirely. Even episodic programs (your sitcoms, your procedurals) are bewitching for their innate boundlessness. They can go on forever, and knowing as much is comforting, intimate, and fun.