“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there” is the famous first line of L.P. Hartley’s novel “The Go-Between.” Not so in Hulu’s “11.22.63,” in which an English teacher played by James Franco travels from 2015 to 1960 to stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The early 1960s are so warm and cozy (never mind that fleeting glimpse of the “Whites Only” bathroom signage) that Franco’s Jake Epping hardly has to adjust.
Jakes does bump up against some problems inherent in time traveling, of course. There’s the way the past keeps throwing hurdles like roaches and dead car batteries in his way to prevent any changes.