Jake eventually moves on to Texas, encountering the 'obdurate' past (as he tells us every 40 pages or so), and. For spoilery reasons, Jake gets roped into the mission and tests the 'rabbit hole' by preventing a few local tragedies first (including one involving his GED student, Harry, who was a small boy in 1958). Al uses this mostly to get cheap meat and make sports bets, but like a lot of American baby boomers, he wonders what would have been if JFK had not been assassinated (Would America have spent so long in Vietnam? Would MLK have been assassinated?). You can go through it and change the past once, but if you try to do it again it 'resets' to your original timeline. In 2011 Maine English teacher Jake Epping learns that his friend Al (who owns a diner in town) has access to a closet through which one can travel back to 1958. The plot is pretty straightforward for such a long novel. I'll get to the time travel business at the end (with spoilers), but first a few spoiler-free remarks about the novel overall. It's like three or four novels in one, but running at the same time, harmonizing with each other at key points. It's almost a coherent time-travel story (I have a few nagging doubts I'll work through below), but there's also intrigue, adventure, and romance. But it's entertaining enough to keep you watching and see what happens next.11/22/63 may be one of my favorite Stephen King novels now.

It's too bad then that 11.22.63 never quite reaches their level of collective excellence. Hulu has produced original series before but never on this scale, and, at least thematically, the result feels a lot like the love child of Back to the Future, Quantum Leap, and Groundhog Day. Abrams (such as a Nixon campaign sign that reads, 'They can't lick our Dick!') help add some much-needed comic relief to the story's dark, weighty themes. But Franco's convincing performance somehow makes it all seem strangely plausible, and clever touches from director J.J.

The story's semi-preposterous rules for time travel aren't big selling points (among them, the portal takes you to the exact same spot at the exact same time - Oct.

And in the end it does, thanks to solid acting and some incredibly convenient plot points. This ambitious adaptation of Stephen King's novel sets out to achieve a lot in only eight episodes.

Stephen king 10 22 63