11.22.63: The Series

11-22-63I finished the final episode of Hulu’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel, 11/22/63. It was alright. It was nowhere near as good as the book, but that is what usually happens to King books. I will try to not compare them too much. Plus there will be spoilers.

The first thing that should be praised was the casting. James Franco really pulls off the man from the 21st century trying to fit into the 1960s. He also seems like a guy who probably came from 1958 or 1962, or somewhere. The rest of the cast was pretty spot on or at least very good. I mean, they dropped the whole Sadie being really tall thing, but that did not matter too much. My favorite casting was probably Deke Simmons. I loved Nick Searcy as Art in Justified and he was perfect for this role.

The first couple of episodes were fantastic. Jake stopping Frank Dunning from murdering his family was incredible. The scene with Josh Duhamel and Franco on the kill floor with the bull was pretty intense. From there the story moves to Dallas and since Jake would need someone to talk to, they brought along Bill.

R 112263_108b_0022_f_03_R_Alex_DukayThe story then focuses on the two of them trying to figure out if Lee Harvey Oswalt actually killed the President. Unfortunately the last few episodes became a bit boring. Here is one of those book/show complaints I was going to try and avoid. If the series was longer, they could have expanded some of those stories that were mashed together in those final few episodes. For example, the whole bookie story was more interesting in the book because of how much it ran throughout his entire stay in the past. So either they should have cut the story back to six episodes or made it thirteen.

The finale though stuck with the book pretty well. All of the crazy things that happened to Jake and Sadie as they tried to stop Lee. Plus the way it all ended, with Sadie dead and Kennedy saved. Jake goes back to the 21st century and realizes that saving Kennedy was a mistake. If you read the book, King did some research and spoke with a bunch of people who proposed that alternate future if Kennedy had survived. The show even ended about the same, with Jake and a much older Sadie having a dance.

Like I said, the show okay. I wish it was a little longer and had stuck just a bit more to the book, but aside from that, the majority of it was well done.

Author: Ngewo

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