11.22.63 - time travelling telly

Mmm, car porn!

Have you started watching 11.22.63? I've always felt no-one quite does nostalgia quite like Stephen King. My first encounter with any of his stories was the film Stand By Me, based on his short story, The Body. He somehow manages to conjure up a bright, sunlit past, yet one that is unsettling as you are aware that change is coming, whether that's simply growing up, or something worse. And the truth is that the past isn't a cosy place, because life itself isn't cosy, we all get hit by losses and pains large or small in our lifetimes. 11.22.63 epitomises that cosy-not-cosy feeling.
The premise of this eight-episode series is simple – and it's all over the trailers, so I'm not spoiling anything here. Jake Epping is a recently-divorced school teacher. Al, the man who runs the local diner reveals, because he is dying and can't complete his mission himself, that there's a door in his diner that leads back to 1960. Go through it, and you're there and can alter the past. Come back through it, and you arrive two minutes after you left. If you go back to 1960 again, it erases your previous trip. Al wants Jake to go back, prevent the death of JFK, which he believes will stop America being drawn into the Vietnam war. Of course, JFK wasn't killed in 1960, so it'll require Jake to live a few years in the past and work out who killed JFK, and why, ahead of that fatal day in Dallas. And the past doesn't want to be changed, so when he gets close to discovering something or changing things, the past will 'push back', it'll try to kill or injure him.

Jake's first task is to get a shave, haircut and suit, which looks much better

I really enjoyed the first episode. Visually, it's a delight. The 60s didn't really start to swing until later in the decade, so the world Jake goes back to is in many ways the tail of the 1950s. My first thought was, 'OMG, CAR PORN!' The cars in this programme are just lovely. Jake was instructed to buy something that'd go unnoticed, but who'd do that when faced with the automobiles of 1960? He buys a two-tone yellow and white beast of a car. (Google tells me it's a 1958 Ford Fairlane 500 Sunliner, for people who know cars better than me. I just think it's really cool.)

The costumes are equally lovely. (There's an interview with costume designer Roland Sanchez on FOX Uk's website, where he explains that he actually went for more of a late 50s look.) On the whole, they're normal, not ultra-glam, but that's still really engaging. This is Stephen King, so the sun is shining, which means men in suits or polo shirts and gab jackets, and women in wide-skirted, colourful dresses. When Jake starts investigating in Dallas, he does meet a woman outside the infamous Book Depository, and she's wearing the most gorgeous suit. All the attendees at a political rally for JFK are also very smart. Lots of little pillbox hats to drool over there. I've been developing a bit of a fashion crush on Jackie Kennedy as it is, so I'll be paying close attention to the costuming.

The story is also engaging, which is the most important thing. I admit to being not so concerned about Jake. However, we meet one character in the present who clearly lived through something horrendous in 1960, and I'm desperate for Jake to change it – though the past will push back. And can Jake stop JFK being killed? Will he ever go back through the door and leave the past as it was? I'm looking forward to finding out.

22.11.63 is on FOX UK on Sundays at 9pm.