Tomorrow With You

Tomorrow With You

5.5/10

Tomorrow With You

Genre:                                 Episodes: 16                            Year: 2017

Romance

Mystery

Synopsis:

Yoo So Joon is a time-traveller who is able to go to the future by riding the subway. On one of his trips to the future, So Joon witnesses his own death. In an attempt to try and change his future, So Joon marries Song Ma Rin, a woman who died at the exact same time as So Joon in the same accident. 

Cast:

Lee Je Hoon (Yoo So Joon)

Shin Min Ah (Song Ma Rin)

Jo Han Chul (Song Doo Shik)

Baek Hyun Jin (Kim Young Jin)

Kang Ki Doong (Kang Ki Doong)

Kim Ye Won (Lee Gun Sook)

Park Joo Hee (Shin Se Young)

General Thoughts:

This drama made me feel so schizophrenic it’s not funny. There were times I completely adored our characters and times I wanted to lean right through the screen and give them a whack upside the head. Unfortunately, these feelings were split pretty 50/50 so I only really enjoyed about half of my time watching this show- because I just don’t really like feeling insanely frustrated at the main characters.

You guys are adorable but dumb

In the beginning So Joon was annoying because of his inability to tell his wife the truth. Not even only about him being a time traveller, but he seemed to lie to her about stupid small things as well. And really, Shin Min Ah is so cute, and her character here was pretty sweet, so it felt uncomfortable seeing So Joon basically taking her for a ride.

Though I definitely preferred when they weren't fighting

I mean, her whole marriage was a lie. Poor girl. I was pretty on board the angst that resulted after Ma Rin found out about his lies though. It felt like a really genuine relationship problem when one half of the relationship isn’t quite as ready to open up about everything as the other. I was totally on Ma Rin’s side during these arguments, and it did feel like we’d made some ground when So Joon opened up and told her about his parents and his sense of guilt. It was these types of arguments and small baby steps forward together that I really enjoyed. Trying to change the future alone and lying about it? Not so much. Generally speaking I liked all the side characters, and I wouldn’t have complained if they’d grabbed a bit more screen time. Considering how many side characters we had, we saw very little of them, and learned virtually nothing about them. Ki Doong was fab as our time traveller’s side-kick and I warmed up to his romance with Se Young once she finally quit being whiney about the guy she never confessed her feelings to getting married. Despite how annoying Gun Sook was in the beginning, I ended up loving the frenemy relationship between her and Ma Rin, and the show really missed out on having a fantastic female friendship there. The two girls almost got to the point of being close buddies, but I felt like they never quite got there.

The house of rebelling wives

I also lament all the juicy fallout we could have had in the breakdown of Gun Sook’s marriage. Like, she was dating our Big Evil Murderer, and it would have been so interesting to watch her marriage completely crumble (more than what was shown), and have her jump completely onto Team Time Travel (cuz she really only jumped halfway and then got pushed down by her cray cray husband). Ah, what could have been.

He killed people because the show needed a villain- let's leave it at that

I wasn’t totally sold on our villain either. He just didn’t get enough back story or enough development. I never had a solid understanding of who he was as a character or why he was so desperate to force this one deal through. And if he’s desperate enough to start killing people, I probably should know what the dealio is. I mean, Young Jin just straight up wasn’t that scary. I never really felt any fear for our main characters in regards to Young Jin, as I just could not for the life of me comprehend how a friggin’ time traveller who knows the future could be out-manoeuvred by a businessman. Sure he was a corrupt businessman, but it’s not like he was an evil genius or anything- he was just a regular-ass dude. Like how…how is he causing you people any trouble at all, I don’t understand. And I guess when you don’t understand the villains motivations or how no one can bring him down, the drama does lose a lot of its fun. The soundtrack was lovely, and I didn’t think it was out to manipulate our emotions- it simply reinforced what we were already seeing on screen. While there’s no song in particular that sticks in my mind, I do remember it being a nice OST. The whole show was shot rather nicely and did have a prettiness to it that enforced the lovey-dovey moments, but also tended to be darker and more colourless during sad or angsty parts of the series (ie. the future).

The dark future where everyone dies

Similarly to the soundtrack, the colour palate was a subtle way of clueing us into the emotions of the characters and was a way to tighten suspense. There were plenty of good aspects to ‘Tomorrow With You’, but at the end of the day it was the trajectory of the plot and its resolution that left me feeling rather dissatisfied. I mean, when you’re a time travel drama you’ve got to be pretty smart and pretty slick- and I don’t really think this drama was either of those things. 

What Was Great:

Sparks:

Well Shin Min Ah and Lee Je Hoon sure had a bunch of chemistry. They were so adorable and so believable as honeymoon lovers. Tell you what, if I were Kim Woo Bin I’d probably not be watching this drama cuz that might spark some mad jealousy.

They're so cute and snuggly

But it made for some believable romance, that’s for sure. I felt like Shin Min Ah stepped up her acting game a bit in this- not a lot, but a bit. I’ve always found her believable in cutesy romance, but I could really connect with her during the scenes of her fighting with her husband too. Yay- believable anger! I think her crying still needs a bit of work, but she acted everything else really well. And Lee Je Hoon is just marvellous.

I want couple jammies. Added bonus if Lee Je Hoon is in them.

Even when his character is being super annoying. And the cute scenes of these guys together were just so cute. It really felt like you were watching two people fall in love. A lot of Korean actors and actresses seem to not like touching each other even when they’re acting in a romance- and when they don’t want to touch each other, the audience can see it. But here our leads had a whole bunch of skinship and a whooooole lot of hugging and kissing scenes, but they didn’t seem awkward or uncomfortable at all. And that more than anything is what really sells a romance. The two looked and felt comfortable together and seemed like they actually wanted to get closer to each other and had fantastic loving expressions. The romance was by far the best aspect of the show, so it was wonderful that Shin Min Ah and Lee Je Hoon were able to generate such crackling chemistry. Even when the rest of the plot sort of fell apart, you were still cheering for these two to get a happy ending.

Acting:

I think I sort of went into this a bit above, but the acting really was very good. And not just from the leads. The support characters were all really excellently acted as well. Though I still don’t quite understand what was going on with the villain, I will say that Baek Hyun Jin acted him really well. I might not know why or how he got so bat-sh*t crazy, but I did believe that he was bat-sh*t crazy, and I guess of the two that one really is a smidge more important.

What a total nutbar

Baek Hyun Jin progressed well from under-appreciated businessman to psycho criminal. Early in the piece he didn’t drop too many clues that he would become a huge villain later on, but still dropped hints that there was no way that Young Jin would ever wind up on Team Time Traveller. I also thought that Jo Han Chul put in a great performance as well. He does awkward and uncomfortable so well, and he brought a lot of that to the table, which always adds a bit of humour. 

What Wasn’t:

Unexplained:

Yeah, so basically the big hole in this drama is that the time travel isn’t explained. At all. At the very least, it’s supposed to have rules, but even that doesn’t seem to be the case. If there were rules, they were very poorly explained, and probably completely discarded at times.

Apparently only boys can hang out in the future

For starters, it’s very weird how both So Joon and Ma Rin’s father got sweet time travel powers and Ma Rin didn’t. Why? Is the time travel god a sexist? It was made even more obvious in the scene where Ma Rin actively tries to time travel the way So Joon does. Like, the scene is super cute, but also reiterates how odd and inconsistent the rules around the time jumping was. She was in the exact same circumstance as the other two, yet completely missed out on all the magic. The show also never really made a clear stance on whether the future could be changed or not (y’know until the end when they didn’t die). Because for a show whose whole gimmick was that the hero was a TIME TRAVELER there wasn’t a whole heap of changing the future going on. For how much time So Joon spent worrying about and travelling to the future, he honestly didn’t do much to try and change it. Except marry Ma Rin, but that was the whole point of the show so that doesn’t really count. I’m also confused as to how So Joon ended up stuck in 2022. Like, why is that a thing?

I didn't know that getting stabbed in the tumtum would put you in a coma, but there you go

The show offered absolutely no explanation as to why So Joon was in a coma for two years after travelling to the future. It also offered no explanation as to why So Joon came out of the coma and couldn’t time travel back to his present after he woke up. They threw around little hypothesis, but never actually confirmed anything. Then, it was never explained why he suddenly could time travel back to his present- except that it was convenient for the plot. And apparently, the rule is that So Joon can only exist in times that he’s alive, but we saw no trace of 2022 So Joon, and when So Joon travelled back to his present, he was still expecting to die in 2019. Which means that there wouldn’t have been a So Joon alive in 2022. Which means that that rule is bullsh*t. I mean really, for a whole time travel drama, the time travel wasn’t very well thought out.

I don't understand how this works. I don't understand how any of this works.

Why Y'all so Daft?:

Characters acted stupidly at frequent times throughout this drama. So Joon was Stupid Number 1. In that it’s really his fault that Se Young’s father died. Like, sorry but it is. If you know a dude is gonna die, then maybe you shouldn’t let him walk around alone. Especially if you think he’s gonna get murdered.

I love you, but you're not very good at changing the future

So Joon already suspected that Se Young’s father’s death was a murder, but instead of simply sticking to that dude like glue, he makes all these convoluted plans to fly him to Japan and whatever. Then he’s kidnapped and murdered anyway. I just kind of think, that maybe if you were there that probably wouldn’t have happened. So Joon also gets double stupid points (along with a not learning anything point) for leaving Ma Rin alone moments before she gets kidnapped. Like, what’s so important that you can’t stay in a taxi 10 minutes and get your wife home. It was literally the situation that f*cked up So Joon’s future the most and he’s just like ‘nah, you can get a taxi alone right?’. So of course she gets kidnapped and of course So Joon gets on the train that’s going to cause him to go missing in the future. Of course. Because apparently knowledge of the future is NOTHING. I still don’t understand why So Joon even had to get on the train in the first place. The police are already there, and it’s not like Young Jin can escape from a moving train. It’s like So Joon just really felt like throwing himself into this situation he’s been trying to avoid for the last couple of months. Stupid Number 2 goes to Ma Rin’s father. Because really. He put in some super halfassed attempts to get Young Jin away from So Joon. I still don’t understand how not telling So Joon that Young Jin was a psycho was going to do anyone any good.

Should I tell him about the murderer? Nah, I'm sure not telling So Joon there's a bad guy will reduce the badness of the baddie.

Like, if they’d just arrested him early on for embezzlement then Se Young’s father wouldn’t have died, that other dude wouldn’t have died, and So Joon wouldn’t have gotten stuck in the future. I’m just saying, it doesn’t really seem like he tried very hard to stop that happening. Stupid Number 3 goes to Ma Rin for lying about Young Jin in the future. Like, you don’t even have any mystical time travel abilities, so why on Earth do you think lying about the evil murderer is going to do So Joon any good.

It's hard to feel bad for you when you could have easily avoided this whole situation

Maybe you should have been like, oh yeah I found some crucial evidence and then I got kidnapped and this is where he took me, so you don’t need to worry about meeting him, just take the evidence off me and hand it to the cops. Boom problem solved. A little bit of blame does have to go to Ki Doong here too, cuz I’m pretty sure that So Joon even told him about the lies future Ki Doong told him, so when Ma Rin suggested the plan in 2019, Ki Doong probably should have been like ‘oh no, that’s what you did last time and it totally didn’t work’. It really just felt like the writers weren’t trying very hard to show that the characters had exhausted all their options. Had there been legitimate reasons for these stupid moments to occur, I wouldn’t be half as upset about them as I am. But instead it’s like the characters chose to ignore very simple solutions to their problems (like maybe stay home and have a movie date and not go anywhere near cars on the day you’re supposed to die), and instead chose very complicated routes that were really bound to end up in a failure. This drama made me feel really smart, but not in a good way. 

Recommend?

Look, if you’re a huge fan of Shin Min Ah or Lee Je Hoon I’d probably recommend it because they’re just so cute together, and they do deliver pretty great performances. If you’re wanting a solid time-travel drama though, I’d advise you to look somewhere else.

Half cute, half why-is-everyone-in-this-show-so-dumb