Two seemingly random strangers somehow get transported back to the year 1987 together.  But as the stories from their own pasts begin to intersect and crossover, they realize that maybe their relationship is not as random as it first seems.  They will have to work as a team is they hope to solve a decades-old serial killer case.  And catching the killer in 1987 will save two important lives from their present-time.  But finding a serial killer isn’t the only thing that will preoccupy their time, as they each meet and gain new understanding of the younger versions of their parents and grandparents.  

Jin Ki Joo as Baek Yoon Young

Baek Yoon Young is a personal assistant to the famous author, Go Mi Sook.  Although she isn’t crazy about her boss, she loves reading and anything to do with books.  One day Yoon Young’s mother kills herself by wading into the river.  In complete shock, Yoon Young visits the river and on her way back, along a dark deserted road, she is almost run over by a speeding car.  Still in a daze, she continues walking, only to find herself back in the year 1987.  And one of the first people she sees is the younger version of her mother.  The crazy driver, Hae Joon, catches up to her and explains everything that has happened.  Including the fact that, for the time being, they can’t go back to the present.  But Yoon Young has already made plans for her time in the past.  She believes her mother would have been much happier if she had never married Yoon Young’s father, so she decides to keep them from meeting, in the hopes it might be enough to keep her mother from taking such drastic measures in the present.  

Baek Yoon Young is driven and thoughtful.  She is willing to keep her mom from meeting her dad,  even if it means she would never be born.  Her persistance keeps their murder investigation going, even when Hae Joon feels like giving up.  The fact that they made Yoon Young dress like a high school student made the age gap between her and Hae Joon feel more exagerrated than it needed to be.  Sometimes she really did seem more like a younger neice than a love interest, but that wasn’t really her fault.  For her part, I like Jin Ki Joo in this role, and her youthfulness gave her great chemistry with the younger actors who played her parents.  

Lee Won Jung as Baek Hee Seop [1987]

Baek Hee Seop is a new student who comes to town to live with his uncle, a local detective.  Hee Seop fall in love with Soon Ae immediately, but Yoon Young is determined to keep them apart because of the future father she knows him to be.  But as the trio gets sucked into the murder cases and spend time together, Yoon Young gets to know her father’s innocent, youthful side and she can’t deny his charm.

 ♥ Hee Seop

Every once in a while I find a character that I just look forward to seeing every time they show up onscreen.  For me, Hee Seop was this kind of character.  I don’t know exactly what it was, but his bashful charm and caring personality made a really delightful character.  And the tension of knowing that this lighthearted, kind boy could have turned into the angry, drunk we saw in the present gave him a bittersweet appeal.  I was rooting for Yoon Young to somehow save the young man he was, to give them all a happy future.  

 ♥ Parents are People Too

We can all be accused at some time of holding our parents to some ridiculous standard.  It’s easy to forget that they were once young people with hopes and dreams that may or may not have gone as they wanted.  I love how we see Yoon Young come into this drama with lots of misunderstanding and unrealistic expectations.  But all of that changes when she gets to know her parents not as they are in her present, but as regular high schoolers.  It’s unfortunate we all can’t have such a life-changing opportunity.  But this drama is enough to at least remind us, that our parents were once just people like us, doing their best through the ups and downs of everyday life.  

Yoon Young’s Ignorance

I was particularly baffled as to how Yoon Young could know so little about her family history.  I understand that bringing up a murdered sister would be difficult for her mom, but by the time Yoon Young was an adult it seems like someone could have mentioned it.  Also, she seemed totally in the dark as to how her father injured his leg.  Again, his injury is a huge focus for why her mom’s life was so difficult.  Don’t you think she would have wanted to know how it all happened?  And when Yoon Young first shows up in the past, she doesn’t seem to know anything about her parent’s hometown.  For someone as bright and inquisitive as Yoon Young, her lack of family history felt silly.  

Motive

Easily the weakest part of this drama, in my opinion, is the arrest of Hae Joon’s dad and the revelation of the motive.  The whole idea that he killed all of those people because he has mommy issues is just not that interesting.  Plus I question why a university teacher would leave the job where he is surrounded by women who read, to come home to his small town, to search out victims.  None of it really works that well.  And once the truth is out, he is captured with no real resistance.  I can’t believe he didn’t at least try to steal the time machine.  Wouldn’t that be his first thought?  And did he actually kill Yoon Young’s mom?  Soon Ae had given up on reading a long time ago, so that couldn’t have been the reason. Or was that the adult Mi Sook, who showed up with blood and mud on her clothes?  And no one, including Hae Joon, get a satisfactory answer as to why he would try to kill his own son.  That hardly seems fair!

“My Perfect Stranger” gives us all the happy endings.  The murderer is arrested, which saves Hae Gyeong and any future victims.  After Hae Joon’s son shows up to fix the time machine he made, Hae Joon suggests they keep his identity a secret from Yoon Young.  Hae Joon bridges the gap in his relationship with his grandfather by taking him fishing.  And just like that, the years of fear and walls disappear.  He also sits down for a heart to heart with his mother before she leaves town.  Yoon Young spends some quality time with Soon Ae and Hee Seop.  And then the couple is ready to return to the present.  They find their new reality in the present to be all they had hoped for.  The changes in the past all translated to positive outcomes in the future, with no serious implications.  Soon Ae is now a successful author and Hee Seop has become a musician with no visible limp.  A year later, our love birds meet to hold hands and walk along the beach.  But in a nod to a possible season 2, they decide to go back to 1987, just briefly, to check on their old friends back there.