Hulu has released an official teaser trailer for its upcoming original series, 11/22/63, based on the Stephen King novel of the same title. The miniseries—or event series, as Hulu wants everyone to call it—stars James Franco as high school English teacher Jake Epping, who is presented with the task of traveling back in time to stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Sure! There isn’t much to the teaser, which mostly just sets up the time travel aspect as well as Epping’s implausible mission. Franco spends the entire teaser looking very grave. He never speaks, but his face definitely says, “what the fuck am I doing?”
Daniel Webber stars as Lee Harvey Oswald, who naturally doesn’t take too kindly to Epping. Josh Duhamel also stars as a charming town butcher, who Epping meets in the past but is also the father of someone Epping knows in the present. Look, things get confusing when time travel is involved. And things get even more confusing for Epping when he falls in love with Sadie (Sarah Gadon), a woman in the past who’s married to a bad guy played by T.R. Knight. Meanwhile, over in the present, Epping has a beautiful ex-wife played by Brooklyn Sudano. (We assume Epping had to draw a map for himself of all the complicated relationships he has in multiple timelines on the set.)
The eight-episode series was written by Friday Night Lights writer Bridget Carpenter, who also executive produces alongside King, J.J. Abrams, and Bryan Burk. The first two hours of the series will be directed by Kevin Macdonald. It premieres on Monday, February 15, 2016, which is President’s Day. We see what you did there, Hulu.