(But be prepared for an ending that you may not like 100%.)

The greatest challenge for this series is how it has to tell the story of 5 main characters who unexpectedly get transformed into their younger selves when they are 55. Although they meet each other, their stories don’t intersect much, so it is all too easy for the series to suffer from disjointedness as it shifts its focus from one character to another. Thankfully, the disjointedness is kept to a minimum, and the life of each of the characters is interesting in its own way.

The five characters start off in different ways, and we may feel more for one or two of them than for others at first:

- San: at 55, he loses his job and has regrets in his love life and in his relationship with his parents.

- Jaya: a popular singer in her younger days, she has lost popularity over time.

- Paul: a gay man who has kept his sexual orientation hidden from his family; he is in love with a man who is about to get remarried.

- Thep: once a promising boxer, he was attacked and crippled before an important match. His boxing school is failing.

- Jarunee: a strict teacher who is being pursued by a much younger man despite having rejected him, she finds out that she has cancer.

Personally, I was more touched by the predicaments of Paul and Thep at first. Nevertheless, I grew to care more about the characters too. In fact, Thep loses some of my sympathy as he seems to become a tad childish after the transformation. My heart most consistently went out to Paul as the other characters can be faulted in some ways, but not so much for Paul.

San is perhaps too impulsive and stubborn in his younger days. Jaya has an attitude problem as a diva and does not even bother to sing live. Thep has an opportunity to be a boxer again after the transformation, but he seems distracted by other “activities” like flirting with a young woman. Jarunee in her older self is a well-meaning teacher but fails to understand the youths she is teaching. Paul, on the other hand, is not perfect but he has lived his younger days in a homophobic family and society, and the man he has been in love with for years is straight and isn’t about to suddenly like men like characters in BL series do. The way his life has turned out isn’t something he can really help.

Because the reason for the characters’ transformation is mysterious, there is suspense from the start regarding whether they will be able to remain young or return to their former selves from the start. The uncertainty is perfectly exploited because it soon becomes obvious that some of the characters will want to remain young while the others will want to return to their older selves: unless they are going to have a choice, neither situation is going to be ideal.

Given that the title is “55:15 Never Too Late”, people may expect a happy ending. But this is not something that anyone watching can be sure of, especially in the last few episodes when the story is worked into a climax. This is a series in which, despite a lot of light-hearted moments, we don’t know what sort of ending to expect until the end (or perhaps even until a second season?). (In the case of Paul, it will be doubly heartbreaking if he has to permanently return to his older self because it will be really sad for both him and his younger self’s love interest.) Together with characters that the audience is likely to care about and all-round good acting, the series is truly absorbing.

The ending of the series, unfortunately, isn't entirely satisfying. It tries to stay true to the idea that it is "never too late" but the transformation only brings a positive change for some of the characters. For at least one character who gets transformed, it can also bring more regrets. Even though the character tries to see it positively, it also seems that they are, as they say, "cursed". In a sense, the ending is realistic. But I'm not too sure if I really want this sort of realism in a feel-good series about people getting a second chance after being transformed into teens.