Okay, that title may have been a bit harsh. It’s not that bad, at least not the first half of it. The second half is absolute garbage, but let me elaborate.

The first thing that irked me about this show was how they dealt with the whole time traveling thing. I don’t know how you’d react if you suddenly traveled over 20 years into the future, but I sure as hell would freak out. I think that would be a very warranted response. However, Kiew barely even reacted when this happened to him. He was seemingly more freaked out about the existence of iPhones than the actual time travel part itself. The people he told also reacted extremely calmly, and believed him pretty much instantly. This wasn’t a huge flaw, but I just found it silly. For the fact that everything else in this show feels very cartoony, they could’ve definitely gone with a more over the top reaction in my opinion. But this was one of the smaller offences.

Like in many recent BLs, the much bigger issue was, sadly, again the chemistry between the two main characters, or rather the lack thereof. Cooper is great as Kiew. He’s very charming and adds a natural charisma to the character, which makes it easy to like him. He’s not really a fully fleshed out character (none of them really are), but he’s enjoyable to watch nonetheless. The one I take issue with is Marc, in the role of Bamee. For most of the time he’s on screen, he looks constipated or like he’s in permanent pain. Granted, this expression suits the character in some scenes, since he’s not really supposed to be bubbly or a happy go lucky kinda guy. The problem is that even in scenes that are supposed to show the two characters falling in love, or Bamee being at least somewhat happy, he still looks like he’s constipated. As does he in scenes, where he’s supposed to be angry. Marc really struggles getting the needed emotions across, leaving Bamee to look about as intimidating as a cupcake, even when he’s supposed to be furious. I don’t know if this is an issue within his acting itself, or if there was simply poor directing. But I saw him in My Gear And Your Gown, and I vaguely remember having had similar thoughts. So maybe he just needs a little more practice (or a lot).
I think the lack of romantic chemistry between Kiew and Bamee resulted from this subpar acting. Kiew was able to portray at least some sort of chemistry towards Bamee, but sadly, that wasn’t enough. I think if Cooper was paired with another acting partner, I could’ve enjoyed this much more than I did. But sadly, that wasn’t the case. I actually liked the bond Kiew and Bamee formed over time, I just didn’t feel the romance at all. They radiated big sibling energy to me. So I think the show would’ve actually been better if this was a tale about a platonic friendship, rather than a romance.

I usually suffer from side-couple-syndrome. So I was hoping that maybe they would knock it out of the park, and make up for what was lacking between the main couple. Sadly, this also didn’t happen. They had no solid build up, and while they had more chemistry than the main couple, there also wasn’t a lot of it. On top of that, the only thing they did, was talk about Kiew and Bamee, which felt strange. Especially given the fact that Plawan used to have a crush on Bamee, and also kinda sorta on Kiew, I think. (Don’t blame me for not being sure, even Plawan himself didn’t know what the writers were trying to do with his vague feelings towards the two main leads.)

One thing I did massively enjoy though, was the whole dynamic in their friend group. They had a very sweet and supportive bond, which was very nice to see. I also liked how much time we actually got to spend with the squad as a whole. Again, I think this show should’ve just been about their friendship, rather than adding in these lacklustre romances.

This show is filled to the absolute brim with cliches and tropes. There’s so many in there, you lose count. If you made a bingo card with all the BL tropes and cliches, you’d definitely get bingo at least twice! There’s the painful trope of mistaking the love interest’s brother as their boyfriend. There’s a scene of the main couple getting soaked by the rain, and then Kiew drying Bamee’s hair. There’s an injury that happens when the couple is cooking together. And of course, because this is a BL, poor poor Bamee was then unable to do anything by himself for like a week. He got burned on one hand, but apparently he forgot that he had a whole other functioning hand, because Kiew needed to feed him for days. And obviously, he needed to help him wash his hair too. At this point I wonder how these BL boys would live, if they didn’t have a boyfriend to take care of them. If one gets a minor injury, they would just die, because they cannot seem to figure out that it only takes one hand to eat with a spoon. Anyway! You also have the accidental falling into a kiss scene with the side couple. For good measure, throw in a scene of one love interest wiping the other down with a towel. Oh, and don’t forget drunken kissing that one of the characters doesn’t remember the next day. Add a spoon (or bucket) full of jealousy into the mix, and you got yourself a recipe for the most standard BL ever. One would think a story about time travel has more to offer than that, but sadly, it didn’t.

If you’re into science, I recommend you don’t watch this, because you might get a heart attack at their stupid plan of sending Kiew back to the past by literally zapping him with lightning. I’m not kidding. They attempted to generate as much electrical power as a lightning strike, and zap Kiew with it, hoping that would get him back to the past. I mean, sure! But he would’ve arrived there like a roasted chicken. Also, the subtitles kept talking about the electric power of thunder. I hope that was just a mistranslation, and they were actually talking about lightning. Or they really weren’t aware that thunder is only a sound, while it’s the lightning strike that holds the electricity. I don't know much about science, but I know at least that.

The show started to drag by episode 6. But it was a decent show up until then. Nothing mindblowingly good or bad. I would’ve probably rated this a solid 6 or 6.5 at this point, because it was entertaining enough and not offensively bad. But then episode 9 happened, and I was so close to just dropping this completely. If it weren’t for Cooper carrying the entire thing, I would’ve just given up.

You see, in episode 9 an incredibly forced, dumb and out of place amnesia plot line happens. I generally dislike that trope, especially since it’s never really done in a realistic manner. But this one was just especially poorly done. Because the plot needed him to, Bamee conveniently remembered everything aside from Kiew himself. That was the first dumb thing, but I was willing to look past that for the most part. But the way they handled it all was just horrible. Bamee’s step-mother, brother and friends all tried to pressure him into remembering Kiew. This went so far, that the step-mother actually made Bamee live with Kiew, despite not remembering anything about him. Imagine you’re suffering from amnesia, and your mother makes you move in with someone who is a total stranger to you, against your will. That’s horrible. Plawan was equally as bad, suggesting Kiew forces himself onto Bamee, thinking that maybe if they were intimate with each other, that would bring back his memories. It all was in such poor taste. Bamee acted like an asshole with his partial amnesia. That wasn’t really a problem, because that can actually happen. But when he regained his memory of Kiew, and kept pretending not to remember, I almost lost it. He played not only Kiew, but also Soda whom he had given hopes to. It was very messed up if you ask me. Obviously he only did it to keep Kiew from going back to the past, but it was still an asshole move.

This whole amnesia storyline felt so out of place. It’s like the time traveling plot came to a complete halt while this was happening. It felt like the writers had two ideas for two different series - one about time travel, the other about amnesia - and then they were forced to somehow morph it into one show. Which resulted in one big mess that sucked the life force out of me. It had one positive though! The scene where Franc (the former villain of the show) was pretending to date Kiew, in order to get Bamee to confess that he has regained his memory, had me laughing out loud. Franc and Kiew had more chemistry than Kiew and Bamee, if you ask me. They should’ve just ended up together, honestly. That would’ve been a brilliant plot twist and I would’ve definitely rated the show much higher if they had pulled that off. The other parts of the Franc storyline were problematic at best. Baiwan eventually falling for Franc, who had harassed her for a really long time (to the point where she needed to get a fake boyfriend and her friends needed to protect her), was pushing a really problematic message.

In my opinion, they should’ve cut the entire amnesia bullshit, and made this into a solid 6 to 8 episodes of time travel silliness. Because it was so dragged out, there was never a real sense of urgency about Kiew getting back to the past, even if we knew his mother’s and Bamee’s dad’s lives depended on it. It felt like even Kiew himself temporarily forgot that he was supposed to travel back. Altogether, you shouldn’t think about the whole time travel plot too much anyway, because hardly anything is explained.

The ending of the show was extremely weird. I feared that this would happen, but hoped it wouldn’t. But it did. If you saw it, you know what I’m talking about. If you didn’t, I’ll spare you the weird implications the end of it all had.

On top of all that, the background music was horrible. It sounded like elevator music, or the jingles you hear when you’re put on hold while calling a company. Once you hear it, you cannot unhear it, and it gets extremely annoying.

If I had dropped this after half of the show, I would’ve rated this a lot higher than I do now, after finishing the whole thing. Cooper was definitely the one carrying the show with his natural charm. He deserved a better script than this. If you’re a fan of Cooper, you’ll probably get some enjoyment out of this show. If you’re not, I wouldn’t recommend watching this. Or you might also wish you could travel back in time, just to undo your decision of wasting time on this.