11.22.63

When adaptations of Stephen King's novels work, they really work, as with the classic film versions of "The Shining," "Carrie," and "Misery." When they don't... well, "Maximum Overdrive."

King isn't a stranger to television, either; his stories have fueled small-screen projects such as "Kingdom Hospital" (which King adapted, in turn, from Lars von Triers' acclaimed Danish TV show) and "Under the Dome," which ran for three seasons on CBS.

Here's an adaptation that far outpaces most King-derived TV work. The producers of "11.22.63" wisely decided that making a miniseries instead of a movie would be the best approach for King's doorstop-sized novel about a time traveller attempting to make the present world a better place by preventing the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The nine episodes that result -- eight, really, since the first two are presented as a single double-length installment -- constitute an unexpectedly taut and engaging thriller. There are plot holes aplenty, but this fantasy takes itself seriously enough -- and with such style -- that you overlook them.

James Franco plays Jake Epping, a.k.a. Jake Ambrose, a school teacher from 2016 who transforms himself into a denizen of the 1960s in order to carry out the failed mission of his good friend Al (Chris Cooper), a Vietnam vet who has spent more than thirty years trying to figure out just how to use a time portal located in the closet of his roadside diner to prevent JFK's assassination. Al has done an enormous amount of research and ground work, but his bold plan has been frustrated by The Past itself -- evidently, time is living entity that doesn't take kindly to meddling.

When The Past succeeds in making sure Al cannot continue with his mission, Al enlists Jake to carry on in his place. Initially, Jake is dubious: The portal opens to specific and unchanging moment in 1960, more than three years before Kennedy's murder. The upside to this is that the delay gives him plenty of time to prepare, including making sure that Lee Harvey Oswald is the true culprit and planning what steps to take in order to stop him.

That's what takes up the bulk of this epic tale. Jake's three years in the past are chock full of encounters with low-lifes and psychopaths, as well as newly made alliances an friendships. He finds a helper in the person of a young man named Bill (George MacKay) and a romantic interest in a young woman named Sadie (Sarah Gadon); he's going to need both of them to outwit the dark forces plotting Kennedy's death and survive the vicious, supernatural interference that The Past itself mounts in defense of the original tragic sequence of events.

One of the series more laudable, and captivating, elements is how The Past as a reactive entity is less pernicious than the past -- lower case -- as a set of attitudes that we've hopefully started to evolve out of. Again and again the series finds ways to explore how the world of half a century ago wasn't the golden age that demagogues would like to pretend it was. Racism and homophobia abound in the past, confronting a shocked Jake time and again with overt instances of race-based hatred or attitudes finely stitched and deeply ingrained in America's social fabric.

It's for intelligent observations like this, as well as the series' design sense and Franco's performance that the show justifies its sticker price; as far as special features go, there's one 15-minute featurette that offers intriguing tidbits about the show's conception and production.

The series is predictable in many ways -- this is, after all, a well-worn and, pardon the pun, time honored trope -- but between the high production values and period stylings (think "Mad Men," only more ambitious) and the series' skillful pacing, this is one of the more binge-watch worthy miniseries to come down the pike of late.

"11.22.63"
Blu-ray
$39.99
http://www.warnerbros.com/tv/112263-0