“This town is the monster.” After the events of this episode, I think Charlotte Hanlon can be forgiven for stating the thesis of “It: Welcome to Derry” so baldly. The creature known as Pennywise runs riot in this episode, to be sure, in all of his head-chopping, child-terrorizing glory. But he is helped in his gruesome work by the good people of Derry, who commit a mass murder that is swept under the rug by the time people are having their coffee the next morning.

I reviewed tonight’s It: Welcome to Derry for the New York Times. (Gift link!)

Although our attention has been largely occupied by the kids and the clown, let’s not take for granted how good this show’s three grown-up leads are. Chris Chalk, Jovan Adepo and Taylour Paige make the adult material as magnetic as that of the young losers.

They don’t feel as if they’re playing characters in a spooky popcorn flick; they feel as if they’re playing human beings who are worried about their families, their ethics and their sanity. That scream from Chalk is one of the most harrowing things I’ve heard on television all year, and it’s been a harrowing year.

I reviewed tonight’s It: Welcome to Derry for the New York Times. Gift link!

The military-pillar subplot never devolves into dopey first-person-shooter shenanigans. From the start, when dozens of troops descend on a haunted house that looks as if it might fall over in a stiff breeze, the operation is depicted as hubristic folly. Men die for no reason, nothing is achieved, and the end result will be the persecution of Rose’s community for her role in the debacle.

As much as Gen. Shaw wants to believe otherwise, sending fully armed troops rolling down American streets to storm houses is a cure worse than any disease it purports to treat. Some problems can’t be fixed with boots and guns. If you try, you’ll only hurt the country you’re claiming to save.

I reviewed tonight’s It: Welcome to Derry for the New York Times. (Gift link!)

The eyeball scene and the flashback are the episode’s two standout sequences, and they’re a mixed bag. The injection of Indigenous folklore into the “It” story feels like a tip of the cap to “Twin Peaks,” which similarly chronicled a town haunted by a demonic presence secretly known to both Native Americans and the United States military. The voice-over narration, however, makes the flashback material feel clumsier and cornier than it needs to be. It would have stood better as a stand-alone episode, the way similar stories were told by shows like “Lost” and “Westworld.”

Poor Margie’s eye-popping experience, by contrast, is a top-to-bottom success. It is gross, gory and inventive, constantly ratcheting up the violence, discomfort and cruelty. The use of a bifurcated snail’s-eye-view effect to show us events from Margie’s perspective, forcing us to experience the horror through her googly eyes, is disturbing on a gut level. That’s what I want from a horror television show.

I reviewed tonight’s It: Welcome to Derry for the New York Times. (Gift link!)

Instead of a haunted house, what if there were a haunted city? What if the troll lurking under the bridge hid beneath the entire municipality? What if small-town America’s racial, sexual, gender and class divisions could be exploited by a billion-year-old cosmic shape-shifter that has taken the form of a child-eating clown?

These propositions are fundamental to “It,” Stephen King’s 1986 doorstopper of a horror novel, which for my money is his most frightening book. Derry is not just a setting, it’s a secondary antagonist. The real horror of “It” is that the presence of the evil entity beneath that quaint Maine town has warped the place’s inhabitants.

No one in Derry ever seems to notice when bad things happen — when outcasts are bullied, Black people tormented, L.G.B.T.Q. people bashed, women assaulted, children abused. The good people of Derry stare, dead-eyed, and do nothing. The second episode of “Welcome to Derry” conveys this pervasive sense of wrongness by fleshing out the city, with the Main Street shopping district, the Black side of town and the nearby air base all taking their turns in the spotlight. Derry feels like a real place, where real children live and grow and, frequently, vanish.

I reviewed this weekend’s It: Welcome to Derry for the New York Times. (Gift link!)

Full disclosure: This episode made it hard for me to get a good night’s sleep. There are horrific images, excruciating moments, and an overall tone of queasy cruelty in this hour of television that I simply couldn’t shake. To me, that’s the mark of great horror.

I recall getting that feeling from reading the 1986 novel “It,” Stephen King’s epic portrait of a small town in Maine called Derry that is haunted by a demonic, shape-shifting, child-eating clown. I first read it in middle school, when I was the same age as its young protagonists — I’m closer in age to their adult selves now — and it hit me like a possessed car. Beyond being King’s scariest book, and his grossest, it is also his cruelest: a nightmare dive into the horrible realities of child abuse and small-town closed-mindedness, transmuted into the supernatural.

I did not get that welcomely awful feeling from the two films to which this series serves as a prequel, “It” (2017) and “It Chapter Two” (2019), both from the director Andy Muschetti. Which is why I’m happy, if that’s the right word, to report that the first scene of this first episode of “It: Welcome to Derry” is scarier and more disturbing than everything in the two movies combined. With Muschetti once again behind the camera for the premiere, he and the showrunners, Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane, serve up a perfect nightmare of mounting panic and terror.

I reviewed the series premiere of the It prequel Welcome to Derry for the New York Times. (Gift link!)

Noah Hawley has done what countless unfortunate employees of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation have been unable to do for nearly 50 years: He brought Aliens to Earth successfully.

I reviewed the season finale of Alien: Earth for the New York Times. (Gift link!)

I’m also not convinced this is going to go well for the (noticeably wide-eyed) Boy Kavalier. This is a man used to being the smartest guy in the room — or used to being told he is, anyway. It doesn’t occur to him that even as he’s figuring out how best to make use of the eyeball, the eyeball is determining the same thing about him. These monsters have already destroyed a robot so sophisticated it was presumed to be nearly indestructible. The hubris of the powerful is a much softer target.

I reviewed tonight’s Alien: Earth for the New York Times. (Gift link!)

What happened out there? How does a crew with the competence level of the people we’ve seen aboard the Maginot round up not only the universe’s deadliest alien, but several comparably awful creatures? How do you even set foot on a planet where these monsters run wild without getting your head bitten off or your lungs sucked out the moment you take five steps from your landing craft? Is there some kind of big cosmic zoo out there, constructed by more sophisticated aliens, that our Weyland-Yutani pals simply burglarized?

I reviewed this week’s Alien: Earth for the New York Times. (Gift link!)

What manner of man becomes a Morrow? I don’t mean a cyborg, though this flashback episode of “Alien: Earth” gives us that answer: The chief security officer of the doomed spaceship Maginot was once a “feral street kid with a palsied arm.” He was “taken in” by a long-ago Ms. Yutani, the grandmother of the woman who is currently in charge of her family’s mega-corporation. She, or the company she ran, gave him his mechanically enhanced, transforming arm.

In exchange, he gave Yutani a lifetime. More than a lifetime, in fact.

It’s never been clear what tempts people to take jobs on Weyland-Yutani’s long-haul space flights. By the time the gig is over, you’ll have spent years, perhaps decades in cryo-sleep, frozen in stasis while the world moves on without you. Morrow already mentioned that he had a little girl back home who died long ago; now we know the circumstances.

Morrow clearly joined the mission in order to permanently provide for his little girl, whose painfully cute pet name for him is “Dadabear.” But eight years into the journey, Morrow received word from the Company that his daughter died in a house fire. A printed-out memo indicates 53 years would have to pass between Morrow hearing the news and Morrow returning to Earth to collect his daughter’s belongings. By then he might be the only person alive who remembers she existed.

So for the bulk of his time in the cold recesses of space, surrounded by people he doesn’t like, collecting disgusting and deadly creatures capable of wiping out everyone aboard, Morrow has known he has nothing to return to. All this time, all this loss, is for nothing. I think that might break me too.

But nothing can be turned into something if you try hard enough, or if you need it to badly enough. With nothing else to cling to, Morrow now has only two priorities. He must fulfill his mission to bring back the specimens safely to Earth, or it really will have all been for nothing, and that cannot be borne. And he must do so to honor the trust and care shown to him by the chief executive’s grandmother long ago.

I reviewed last week’s Alien: Earth for the New York Times. (Gift link!)

This episode offers us a brief history lesson of the “Alien” world, courtesy of Joe, the still-human brother of the show’s lead “hybrid,” Wendy. (Joe insists sentimentally on using her human name, Marcy.) Joe explains to the childlike hybrids that once upon a time there existed things called governments, in which people voted for how they wanted their world to be run. “It didn’t work,” Joe says simply. So the corporations stepped in, and “apparently, they solved all the problems.” That “apparently” sure feels pointed.

It’s a chilling scene for several reasons. First, every single thing we’ve seen about Boy Kavalier would indicate that this man should be nowhere near the levers of power. The default assumption that the ability to succeed in business or technology makes one a natural leader is one of the fundamentally delusional capitalist beliefs that the “Alien” franchise exists to skewer, ever since the Weyland-Yutani Corporation sent a bunch of long-haul truckers to recover a lethal species of giant parasitical space piranhas in the 1979 film that started it all.

But beyond that, the scene shows how corporate control of education and media eliminates the ability of Joe and the hybrids to understand and articulate the problems facing the world they live in. Democracy “didn’t work”? OK … says who? The five corporations who replaced it? They hardly seem an unbiased source of information. “Apparently, they solved all the problems?” What problems did they solve? And why are there still so many problems now?

I reviewed tonight’s Alien: Earth for the New York Times. Gift link!

The “Alien” franchise explores two overlapping nightmares. The first is the Alien, a cold and implacable force against which humanity is defenseless. The second is humanity itself, which through technological hubris and old-fashioned greed might well invite its own destruction. Against the first we are helpless; with the second, we are all too eager to help.

I reviewed tonight’s Alien: Earth for the New York Times. (Gift link!)

Hawley is no stranger to playing with other people’s toys. He is also the creator of “Fargo,” the acclaimed crime anthology series based on the film by Joel and Ethan Coen, and “Legion,” an ambitious take on the Marvel Comics mutant character from the writer Chris Claremont and the artist Bill Sienkiewicz. But both of those shows draw from a wider set of influences than simply the work they’re named after; Hawley’s “Fargo,” for example, is a sort of “Songs in the Key of Coen” riff on the brothers’ entire oeuvre rather than just their snowy Minnesotan black comedy.

“Alien: Earth” casts a similarly wide net. In the closing credits, we read that the show is “based on elements created by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett,” who developed the first film’s original story (O’Bannon also wrote the screenplay). But obviously, the contributions of Giger, Scott, Cameron and Fincher are all in play as well.

Scott’s “Blade Runner” is referenced in the sprawling cityscape Prodigy City; in the models strutting and posing on oversized video screens; and in Olyphant’s strikingly coifed synthetic, who feels like a tip of the cap to Rutger Hauer’s character, Roy Batty. The creatures are reminiscent of similar beasts from Stephen King’s “It” and “The Mist.” Wendy’s plight bears the marks of the sci-fi anime classics “Akira” and “Battle Angel Alita.” Even the high-rise setting falls squarely in the action-movie lineage of “Die Hard,” “The Raid” and “Dredd.”

None of this is to say the show feels derivative. A product of its influences? Of course — this is franchise filmmaking. But Hawley’s homages are laser-precise. And they make use of techniques rarely seen on big-budget TV, like the leisurely zooms of 1970s cinema. Hawley brings his own penchant for dreamy montage to the proceedings as well, adding an aesthetic ingredient that is new to the setting.

I’m covering Alien: Earth for the New York Times, starting with my review of tonight’s double premiere. (Gift link!)

You have an unusual screen presence. Your demeanor is a bit twitchy and unpredictable, and your look is striking. The cinematographer of “Mr. Robot,” Tod Campbell, once told me he had to change the lenses he was shooting with to better capture the beauty of your eyes.

[Smiling] No, look, I know I’m a very unique individual. My mannerisms are unique. My speech is unique. There’s a certain flicker behind my eyes that you can’t necessarily compare to anyone else — that’s what I’ve been told, at least. The camera has an ability to capture every essence of that. Perhaps it can see too much, at times. Perhaps it’s a deficit of mine. But I’ve found a way to embrace it, and the world has too, in a way. Most importantly, it helps the outcasts, the misfits, those who feel disenfranchised or alienated or just, for lack of a better word, different, feel more at home and at peace in their own skin, behind their own unique eyes.

I interviewed Rami Malek about his career and his new action movie The Amateur for the New York Times. (Gift link!)

Many of these missteps could be forgiven if the character work were particularly compelling. Unfortunately its core cast — Watson, Olivia Williams, Travis Fimmel and, until this episode at least, Mark Strong — swamp the rest of the show with their relative intensity. It is simply very hard to care about, say, Sister Lila walking around with glowing blue eyes and issuing commands in Dortea’s voice when we’ve seen how much more interesting this sort of behavior is when the twitchy, shuffling, humorous, kind of cracked Desmond Hart does it. Same with Empress Natalya, who lacks the in-over-his-head melancholy granted to Javicco by Strong, or the mettle brought to Valya and Tula by Watson and Williams. Simply put, the show is lopsided.

But there’s every possibility it will right the ship. Sophomore surprises, in which flawed but promising first seasons are succeeded by second runs that exceed them in every way are fairly common in Sci-fi-fantasy TV. “Foundation,” “The Wheel of Time” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” all took off during Season 2 in a way I wouldn’t have thought possible having watched their first seasons. “Dune: Prophecy” is most notable right now for where it goes wrong. But you have to believe that when things fall apart, they can be put back together.

I reviewed the season finale of Dune: Prophecy for the New York Times. (gift link!)

Until now, this show has been focused on plot, layering mystery upon mystery and expertly building a world. But it has done so at the expense of building characters, who have mostly been along for the ride. By keeping the focus on character, and on the truths they uncover, this episode reversed the show’s polarity in a welcome way. With any luck, the change will stick.

I reviewed this week’s Dune: Prophecy for the New York Times. (Gift link!)

When you step on set on a huge production like this, with the giant sets and elaborate costumes, does that make your job easier?

A lot of actors definitely say all that makes it easier for them. I don’t know if it affects me, really. I appreciate the work that goes into creating those costumes and sets, but I always make it about the other person I’m acting with.

The worst thing for me is walking on a set, and there are so many people in the room, and I know at one point in the day I’m going to be the only person talking. I don’t do speeches. I didn’t read in front of the class. So that’s the most daunting stuff, when I get on set and think: Oh God, there’s a lot of extras and actors here, and I’m going to have to talk in front of everybody — shoot me.

How do you overcome that? It’s your job.

I know! I much prefer when there’s only one person in the scene with me. But I try to make the work high-stakes and meaningful enough to where I can ignore what I’m doing. That scene in [Episode 4] where I’ve got to speak in front of a lot of people, that stuff is extremely difficult for me.

I interviewed Travis Fimmel about his work as Desmond Hart on Dune: Prophecy for the New York Times. Raised by Wolves forever.

Personally, I’m still waiting for these characters to reach out and grab me the way the heroes and villains of “Game of Thrones” and “House of the Dragon” have done. The show is still cramming such huge globs of plot and exposition into every episode that it’s tough to get a real handle on anyone who isn’t Valya or Tula at the moment. This is a time in the series’s progression when character building should probably take precedence over world building.

Frank Herbert relied on an incredibly verbose and complex style of inner monologue as a means of building out his characters amid the incredibly dense worlds he was creating. That works well on the page, but as fans and detractors alike of David Lynch’s “Dune” can tell you, translating Herbert’s approach — whether with voice-over narration or some other means of revealing characters’ interior lives — is a tricky proposition. So far, the series is struggling to pull it off. But the answer for impatient viewers may be simply to do what so many of the schemers and planners of the Duniverse do: sit, wait and see what happens.

I reviewed this week’s Dune: Prophecy for the New York Times.

Javicco’s own bastard son, Constantine, gives up the goods on Desmond while in the middle of a lengthy sex scene with Duke Richese’s daughter, Lady Shannon (Tessa Bonham Jones), which unfolds languorously in an immense and ornately decorated hollow tree trunk. Detractors might call this kind of eroticized info-dump “sexposition,” a term frequently lobbed at “Game of Thrones.” It’s this critic’s opinion that if you have to get an earful about intergalactic politics, you may as well get it from good-looking naked people.

I reviewed this week’s Dune: Prophecy for the New York Times.

My wife Julia Gfrörer’s forthcoming book World Within the World got a great review in the New York Times, which rules, and it mentions me and my contributions to the bok, which is an unexpected bonus. Go read! (Gift link!)