The Best Hit: Episodes 3-4

by javabeans

Ratings jumped for the second day of The Best Hit: Yesterday’s 2.5% and 2.9% leapt up to 5.0% and 4.1% today. Maybe it was word of mouth that kicked in, because while I didn’t quite know what to expect of the show before it aired, I did quite enjoy what it delivered once it did, and perhaps that sentiment brought new viewers in. Or maybe this is what happens when you start a show without Yoon Shi-yoon (hence low ratings), then center the next episode all around him (more ratings!). This is easy math, so the solution must be to never be without Yoon Shi-yoon again.

 
EPISODE 3 RECAP

Back in 1993, on that fateful rainy night, idol star Yoo Hyun-jae parks outside the World Agency building, pulls two large duffel bags out of the trunk, and heads up to his rooftop apartment. As we saw previously, he checks his many voicemail messages, most of which come from World Agency’s then-CEO (Grandpa in the present), who yells at him about the latest situation.

The last message is from his manager, Kwang-jae, who warns that things are getting more complicated than they thought, and that he’d better leave his studio immediately.

So Hyun-jae grabs his things (dropping his wallet) and heads outside into the storm, nearly gets hit in the head with his own poster-sign, and falls on the staircase. He ends up accidentally riding his wooden sign all the way down multiple flights.

In the present day, jilted Woo-seung and club-dancing Ji-hoon are allowed to leave the police station after clearing up their twin embarrassments. Woo-seung drives them to Ji-hoon’s place, and MC Drill keeps laughing at her for not realizing her boyfriend and best friend were cheating behind her back.

His ridicule finally makes Woo-seung snap, and she starts beating MC Drill over the head with a tissue box. It’s Ji-hoon who spots the danger ahead and yells out a warning.

Woo-seung slams on the brakes, and although they avoid hitting the pedestrian, they find him sprawled out on the street. It’s Hyun-jae, having been spit out of his era and into this one, 24 years later.

Hyun-jae opens his eyes, tries to say something that might be “hand” (Woo-seung is stepping on his), and then falls unconscious.

The three friends freak out and take Hyun-jae to the hospital, where the doctor proclaims that he’s… just sleeping, HA. (Doc is played by comedian Kim Jun-ho, who is Cha Tae-hyun and Yoon Shi-yoon’s castmate from the current season of 1 Night 2 Days.) He tells them to let the patient rest, and they can do tests when he wakes.

The friends worry how they’ll be able to foot the hospital bill, and start bickering about whose fault it is, with MC Drill blaming Woo-seung, and Woo-seung feeling pretty certain she didn’t actually hit the guy. Ji-hoon breaks up the brewing fight between them, then suggests they go home and wait for the next step.

At Ji-hoon’s tiny rooftop apartment (which used to be Hyun-jae’s), the bickering starts again with MC Drill telling Woo-seung that there’s no space for her here and emphasizing how uncomfortable it’ll be. Woo-seung fires back that she doesn’t intend to stay long (to Ji-hoon’s dismay), and that the only thing uncomfortable about it will be looking at MC Drill’s face. Okay, I could actually watch these two bicker for hours. They’re totally childish, but the zingers are worth it.

Woo-seung gives Ji-hoon cash to cover her staying here, and he tells her to make herself comfortable since she’s paying rent. It turns out that the tiny attic apartment has an even tinier attic storage closet, and Woo-seung figures she can clean it up and stay here, assuring him that she’s fine living in small spaces.

Ji-hoon asks hesitantly if she’s okay, and she says matter-of-factly that she’s fine, “aside from being betrayed by my best friend, dumped by my boyfriend, humiliated at the police station, and hitting someone with a car.” But she’s not one to wallow in self-pity, and gets to work cleaning. The most she’ll allow is sighing to herself that whether in this storage room or in a box, she’s still unable to live without hunching over (literally and metaphorically).

In the morning, Ji-hoon finds that his watch (the same one Hyun-jae was wearing) has stopped, apparently from the moment they almost ran Hyun-jae over. His friends start bickering from the moment they see each other, and just as they’re getting into it, MC Drill’s spidey sense tingles and sends him diving for the closet.

Ji-hoon quickly ushers Woo-seung back into her storage room before she’s spotted by the little girl, Mal-sook (who calls Ji-hoon oppa, but may not be his actual sister), here to call him down to breakfast. She’s a precocious kid, who sniffs around and asks suspiciously if there isn’t anyone else here. Mal-sook accepts his denial, but looks unconvinced.

The friends make plans to all go to the hospital to check on the patient later, and Woo-seung asks worriedly if he’ll really be okay.

Cut to: Hyun-jae in the hospital bed, wincing in pain as his doctor readies the defibrillator. Memories fly through his mind: Manager Kwang-jae trying to convince him not to leave the agency, another agent asking how he could have worked without a contract all these years, his group Jay-2 winning on a music program, him telling Kwang-jae that he would disband Jay-2.

Hyun-jae wakes up… and we see he was wincing from the pill bottle wedged under his back, and that his doctor was defibrillating a different patient. Wah wahhhh. He wonders why he’s here, then recalls his near-death experiences flying down the staircase and then almost getting hit by a car.

Nearby, he overhears nurses gossiping about how this is the first celebrity to come to this hospital, and how much cooler he is in person, which makes Hyun-jae puff up in pride. But he gets worried to hear that reporters are gathered outside, and decides he’ll have to sneak away unnoticed.

Of course, then we cut over to another bed, where idol star MJ (the guy Ji-hoon kept getting mistaken for) is resting after a car accident of his own.

MJ’s manager asks how his accident occurred in such unlikely circumstances, and MJ mutters that maybe he did it purposely to avoid an appearance—why does he have to go to some random assemblyman’s publication event? (“Don’t you know that I hate books most of everything?”)

The agency CEO texts an order for MJ to come in for a meeting, no doubt for a scolding. MJ sulks and hides under his blanket.

Hyun-jae wraps his face with bandages and maps out his exit course. He ducks behind a nurse’s cart and does a barrel roll across the lobby, not clocking the reporters’ utter lack of interest in him.

His bandages catch in a wheelchair and unravel from his face, leaving him exposed. Assuming the reporters are catching on (in reality, they’re just shaking their heads at the weirdo), he cartwheels to the revolving doors like an action hero.

The revolving doors stop turning, and a reporter taps on the glass to ask Hyun-jae to move his hand. Hyun-jae, whose hand is hiding his face, reluctantly moves it away and asks them not to take pictures… but they mean his other hand, which is on the door and has triggered the safety stop mechanism. Hur.

Hyun-jae removes his hand, the doors resume moving, and he wonders whether he really isn’t the reason for the reporters. He puzzles it out, then realizes with a laugh, “Surely it’s not… Kyung-kyu ajusshi?” Ha, he thinks he’s being punk’d; MC Lee Kyung-kyu was popular for hosting a hidden camera show.

But then Hyun-jae notices his environs, and all the super-modern architecture that looks nothing like the Seoul he knows—all tablets and smartphones and strange flying camera drones.

“The world has changed,” Jang Hyuk says, sidling up next to him out of nowhere. He warns him to “pull yourself together, if you want to return safely.”

“Who… are you?” Hyun-jae asks in confusion. Jang Hyuk looks him up and down, and then turns to reveal that he’s on a Bluetooth call. And riding a hoverboard. HA! Jang Hyuk zips away all cool-like, and Hyun-jae has his mind blown.

Wait, I take that back, because the real mind-blowing happens when Hyun-jae sees a large screen promoting all of today’s Hallyu idol stars in all their glossy, flashy glory, promoting Star Punch’s summer concert. Featured prominently is the agency honcho, Park Young-jae, aka Hyun-jae’s former Jay-2 partner (aka the YG to his Seo Taiji).

Seeing the current year, he falls to the ground in shock.

The boys drive to the hospital to check on the patient, but MC Drill notes that Ji-hoon missed a turn and protests when he realizes Ji-hoon is making a stop to help Woo-seung move out of her friend’s place.

Woo-seung gets a call from her flighty mother, who starts telling her about a dream she had and how it means she should watch her mouth today. Woo-seung hangs up, annoyed.

She’s surprised when Ji-hoon shows up unannounced to help her pack, and he’s surprised to see how little stuff she has. Woo-seung replies that she’s spent her live crashing with other people, and having too much baggage becomes a burden.

When her eye starts to tear up, she tells him it’s only her tear duct condition, and not because she’s sad. She says she’s even grateful, since these were two people she’s better off without, and they just sped up the breakup process. She sounds remarkably cool about it, but when she starts collecting all the things she and her friend bought together, she gets petty, declaring that she won’t leave behind a single thing she owns.

With that, Woo-seung cuts an apron in half and tears off the head of a teddy bear. She hesitates over a laptop they’d won together, but then breaks it in half over her knee, right at the hinge. Ouuuch.

Meanwhile, Hyun-jae stumbles into a bathroom, reeling from the shock of being in the future. He reaches for the tap, only to struggle in vain at the auto-sensor faucet that has no handle. Okay, I know that pain.

Next, he asks an info-desk clerk where to find a pay phone, which has the man scratching his head. Hyun-jae averts his face when a pack of schoolgirls walks by, not wanting to be recognized—and then is confused when he isn’t recognized.

He gets a little cocky when he sees a pair of women checking him out, until he hears their words, which hit him like a slew of arrows: “bumpkin,” “fashion terrorist,” “they don’t even dress like that in the sticks.”

He asks a stranger where the pay phone is, and the guy (cameo by rapper Defconn, another 1N2D castmate) assumes his cell battery died and offers his phone to Hyun-jae. What ensues is a round of “Who’s on first?” with Hyun-jae explaining that he wants a phone and Defconn handing over his cell, and Hyun-jae repeating that he wants a phone.

Defconn calls his cell a “hand phone,” and Hyun-jae’s only experience with that phrase is the finger-comm used in Inspector Gadget. So, figuring he’s in some brave new world of hand communication, he grabs Defconn’s hand to speak into his pinky. LOL.

Defconn figures he’s a nut and leaves, and Hyun-jae shakes his head in bewilderment.

At the bakery, Dad Kwang-jae tries to cheer up Ji-hoon’s mother, Bo-hee, who’s still in a funk over her embarrassing radio comeback that left her looking like a brainless ditz. Kwang-jae tries to assure her that it’s not a big deal, to little effect.

A trio of fangirls (the same ones stalking MJ) rush in, having realized that the bakery ajumma is the guest from yesterday’s radio show. They inform Bo-hee that the radio show’s corresponding video footage blew up on SNS, which sounds exciting until Bo-hee watches the footage and relives her humiliation all over again.

When the three rooftop friends pull up to the hospital, Woo-seung is sound asleep in the backseat, so Ji-hoon decides to let her rest. Inside, the nurse informs him that the patient left without notice, and the boys worry about whether this could come back to bite them later.

Hyun-jae eventually finds a pay phone, but none of the numbers he dials exist anymore. Still partly in denial, it starts to sink in that he may really have traveled twenty years into the future. He wonders if his wild ride down the stairwell was the cause, but it seems too absurd to believe.

That’s when Hyun-jae has a memory of manager Kwang-jae once telling him, “What would you do without me?” So he decides that he’ll have to find Kwang-jae somehow.

Star Punch CEO Young-jae (I want so badly to call him YJ) chides idol MJ for missing that important event. MJ’s attitude is annoyingly cavalier, and CEO Young-jae tries to impress upon him the importance of seeing through your responsibilities, and how in this industry, going up takes work but going down happens in an instant. Punctuated, of course, by his chair deflating just as he says it. (I think this chair gag is going to be my favorite.)

That’s when Star Punch’s chairwoman interrupts the meeting—she’s Cathy (Im Ye-jin), the rich backer of the agency who calls Young-jae “oppa” despite being a dozen years older. She’s also his wife, and the agent who had meetings with Hyun-jae back in the ’90s, probably to lure him away from World Agency.

Cathy has heard about Young-jae’s interest in World Agency’s building ownership, which he’s kept from her. She asks why he needs money that she doesn’t know about, insisting they should have no secrets between them.

As Hyun-jae walks by the hospital again, he spies his very own car parked in front, which still has the old Jay-2 decal he’d put on it. He tells himself that it can’t be his car—but whaddaya know, his key works in the door and starts the ignition. Despite having no idea how this is possible, he drives it away.

At home, the family sits down to lunch without Bo-hee, who’s still in a funk after her radio fiasco. Grandpa suggests that they call in an old favor with the KBC station president, an old buddy of his, only to be told that the man died.

The boys leave the hospital and find their car gone. MC Drill takes to mean that Woo-seung drove off on her own, stranding them there, and rages against her.

In actuality, Woo-seung is still asleep in the backseat while Hyun-jae drives. He’s a little distracted by all the new sights of the city and takes a wrong turn, ending up lost on a highway.

That’s when Woo-seung stirs awake, and realizes that the driver isn’t one of her friends. She screams. He screams. Their faces are pretty awesome.

Woo-seung starts hitting Hyun-jae in the head with a toilet seat cover, then a toilet bowl wand, demanding he pull over. He swerves, trying to fend off her blows, and yells at her to knock it off before they crash.

Then he sees her reach for a third weapon—a frying pan—and looks back nervously, telling her not to do it. They’re so worked up that she notices belatedly that he’s about to rear-end a car at a red light, and he slaaaaaams on the brakes.

Woo-seung lurches forward, heading for the dashboard, turning her head at the last moment. Then the car slams back, inches from the car in front, and the momentum propels her backwards—this time right at Hyun-jae’s face.

Smooooch.

After a slow-motion, Wham-scored movie romance moment, they pull back in horror. Woo-seung grabs for the frying pan, and slams it into Hyun-jae’s face.

 
EPISODE 4 RECAP

After that meet-angry-cute, the car wheezes to a stop, and Hyun-jae can’t get it to start up again. It’s only now that Woo-seung recognizes him as the guy she almost hit last night.

They both ask what the other was doing in this car, and Hyun-jae says this is his car, which she doesn’t believe. She tells him that if he meant to injure himself on purpose (to score a settlement), he picked the wrong three (penniless) targets.

Moreover, with her cell battery dead and him phone-less, they’re stranded for the moment. They yell in frustration.

Ji-hoon and MC Drill take a break during dance practice, and MC Drill broadcasts to his internet show about Woo-seung stealing their car, asking his viewership of zero to send in tips.

The trainees all snap to attention at the arrival of one of their top trainees, DO HYE-RI (Cosmic Girls’ Bona). Or, as she’s also known, Dok Hye-ri (Tough Hye-ri). Hye-ri takes the floor and performs a sexy dance in heels, and oozes a fierce vibe that has everyone watching rapt. Apparently she was being prepped for an upcoming debut, but got downgraded because of her weight.

Still roadside as night falls, Hyun-jae attempts to flag down passing vehicles, with no success. Frustration mounting, he screams after them, “Do you know who I am?! I’m Yoo Hyun-jae!” Which does absolutely no good.

He returns to the car, where Woo-seung is back at her studies with her flashlight strapped to her head. She asks where he got his clothing, which he takes for a compliment (it isn’t) and starts explaining that he’s always had an interest in fashion. She guesses that he bought it at a local market for mere pennies, and he sputters that he’s always been lauded for his style. Woo-seung says placatingly that what really matters is satisfying yourself, no matter what other people say about you.

Hyun-jae takes issue with Woo-seung speaking familiarly with him, and they do the familiar “Who’s older?” routine, asking for each other’s birth years. When he says he’s a 1971-er, and guessing her to be a 1973-er, she rolls her eyes and thinks he’s off his rocker.

A tow truck happens by and pulls over, and Woo-seung jumps out to ask for help. That takes care of one problem, but then Woo-seung’s stomach grumbles loudly. Hyun-jae starts to mock her before his own stomach growls, but at least he’s able to fish out a candy bar from his pocket.

Noting Woo-seung’s sad gaze, he finds another and offers it to her. She pridefully turns him down, pooh-poohing the candy bar.

He protests that he shot a CF for this bar that shot its sales up, and then bursts into an impassioned reenactment of his commercial, cheesy lines and all, expecting her to recognize them. Woo-seung just averts her eyes, embarrassed for him. “Don’t you have a TV at home?!” he asks incredulously.

At home, Grandpa rifles through Kwang-jae’s desk looking for some nail clippers, and finds instead a stack of bank loan papers—one of which cites intent to seize property. Gack!

After being towed to a mechanic, the car is fixed, and since Hyun-jae had no money on him, Woo-seung was left to foot the bill. She cries over her precious cash, and Hyun-jae attempts to explain (for the dozenth time or so) that he really isn’t a pathetic loser, and that he’s in extenuating circumstances right now. She believes this not at all, and warns him to pay her back.

Woo-seung asks her newly revived phone for their location, and Hyun-jae’s astonishment at the voice reply is pretty awesome. Woo-seung sets the GPS navigation in motion, and Hyun-jae’s eyes nearly flip out of his head. (“Is this… talking to me?”)

He nearly gets into an accident changing lanes, and she screams at him to use his blinker. He points out that thanks to her, it’s broken, and as a result, Woo-seung has to flash her headlamp out the window to act as makeshift blinker.

They pull into a rest stop for a bathroom break, and in her impatience, Woo-seung can’t get free of her seatbelt. Hyun-jae unbuckles it for her, and in the process, their faces get uncomfortably close—and then the broken passenger seat chooses that moment to slam backwards, landing Hyun-jae on top of Woo-seung, their lips locked in another kiss. Mwahaha. Now it’s a rake gag, and it’s cracking me up.

She shoves him off, and he insists he’s just as much a victim. He tells her phone (thinking it’s real AI) to rest while he goes to the bathroom, then steps out.

In the rest stop, Hyun-jae hears a passing traveler answer a phone with the name Lee Kwang-jae. Spotting someone walking away, he assumes that’s Kwang-jae and takes off in hot pursuit. A few moments later, Woo-seung sees him driving off without her.

Hyun-jae diligently follows the car on the road, but gets distracted by an incoming phone call he doesn’t know how to answer. He loses sight of the car, so decides to return to his studio.

Woo-seung tries calling her cell from a pay phone, but Hyun-jae ignores it since he doesn’t know how to accept the call. She fumes, then wonders how she’ll make it home.

At home, Ji-hoon notes the late hour and worries, and is relieved when Woo-seung calls. She only has enough coins to hurriedly tell him to bring a taxi before her call cuts out.

Hyun-jae pulls up in front of the World Agency building just moments before the real Kwang-jae does. Seeing him prompts a flashback, and Hyun-jae thinks of the day he’d announced he was moving agencies. We see this time that Hyun-jae had asked Kwang-jae to come with him as his manager, offering him higher pay.

Kwang-jae had argued that if Hyun-jae left, their agency would be ruined—their boss (Grandpa) had even bought the agency building after Hyun-jae’s album struck it big, incurring a big bank loan in the process. “Who told you to overextend yourself like that?” Hyun-jae had asked, and Kwang-jae had called him selfish.

Now in the present, Kwang-jae notices the car parked there and peers closer. Thinking that the jig is up, Hyun-jae prepares to face him—only to have Kwang-jae call him ajusshi and tell him to move his car. Heh.

Grandpa steps outside and asks Kwang-jae if the building is going to be repossessed by the bank. Kwang-jae admits that he’s missed a few payments, but assures him that he’ll figure it out. Grandpa grumps that this is all because of “that bastard” Hyun-jae for betraying them and running off with their money.

That’s when Bo-hee pokes her head out of the bakery to ask what the men are doing out on the sidewalk. The scene makes Hyun-jae furrow his brow, but for now he drives away.

Up in the rooftop apartment, Woo-seung lies in a daze from her unbelievable day. MC Drill refuses to believe her explanation, because it sounds crazy, and accuses her of being the car thief’s accomplice. He and Ji-hoon both recoil when Woo-seung jumps up in a rage, sputtering about following the punk to hell to give him payback.

Hyun-jae drives to the river and gets lost in old memories, thinking to a meeting he’d had with an executive before a mountain of cash. Oh no, did you really steal all that money? Hyun-jae makes it sound like he’s here to accept the money on behalf of his busy agency president, but looks nervous when the executive calls just to make sure. But the call doesn’t get answered, and the man lets it slide.

Aha, so that’s what was in those huge duffel bags in the opening scene. Hyun-jae deposits the moneybags in his car’s trunk… which in the present merely hold Woo-seung’s belongings. He sighs in dismay, but at least finds a package of ramyun in the mix.

Still steamed, Woo-seung uses Ji-hoon’s phone to call hers, and sees that he’s entered her name as “Woo-seung Reaper,” which makes her grumble. Her call goes unanswered, but she tries repeatedly anyway (and we see that she’s saved Ji-hoon in her phone as “Minion,” lol).

Hyun-jae roots through Woo-seung’s things to collect a pot and portable stove, but he can’t get it to work and ends up eating his ramyun dry. He reads through the newspaper used as packing material, and updates himself on current events.

He tries to work Woo-seung’s phone, but doesn’t know how to use it (“Hand Phone, are you sleeping?”). He recalls how Woo-seung activated the voice assistant, and manages to get it to answer questions of location, date, and whether time travel is possible. Of course, there are limits to what it will answer, and he gets frustrated with her repeated “I don’t know what you’re asking” refrain and snaps, “Are you looking down on me too? I’m Yoo Hyun-jae!”

But mention of his name gets the voice assistant to run a search on it. Up comes his profile… and news of his presumed death back in 1994. Stunned, he asks, “I die next year?”

That’s a doozy to take in, and he sits there swigging soju, trying to make sense of it all.

The next day, the park is bustling with people and a small crowd gathers around Hyun-jae’s car. He’s passed out in the front seat, with bottles of soju and propane (for the stove) next to him, which looks like an attempted suicide scene.

Knocking on the glass doesn’t wake him, so a bystander smashes a rock into the side window, and Hyun-jae jolts awake. Everyone cheers in relief and tells him to live, and gradually the crowd disperses, leaving Hyun-jae baffled.

Hyun-jae sits in a stupor by the waterside for a while, then collects his wits and tells himself to figure things out. He decides to head back to his rooftop studio where everything started.

When he pulls up to the World Agency building again, he spots Ji-hoon and MC Drill heading inside.

Meanwhile, Woo-seung declares that she’ll catch that jerk no matter what. Ji-hoon points out that she has no way of finding him and no idea even how to start, but she insists that she’ll do it anyway. As they’re arguing back and forth, the front door opens and a voice calls out.

It’s Hyun-jae, and Woo-seung is so bloodthirsty that she lurches at him immediately. Her hand slips out of Ji-hoon’s grasp, her feet trip over themselves, and she pitches forward—landing her lips right on his. For the third time. Well, now it’s just fate.

Epilogue

In the elevator at Star Punch Agency, Ji-hoon and MC Drill assure each other that the other person will be fine, praising each other’s rapping skill and dancing ability. They compliment each other on their physiques and looks, saying that the country will go wild for them once they debut.

Just as they’re striking a pose, the elevator doors open, revealing none other than actual idol stars Monsta X. Ji-hoon and MC Drill flatten them against the walls in embarrassment, saying nothing until Monsta X disembarks. Then MC Drill boasts that the idols couldn’t even look them in the eye, feeling ugly next to their superior looks. Ji-hoon calls him an idiot.

 
COMMENTS

I liked yesterday’s first episode (er, first two), but my interest level really solidified with today’s hour. The premiere felt a bit scattered—though very funny with its five-jokes-a-minute pace and constant callbacks to the ‘90s—in that it took me some brainpower to figure out how the various characters were related. Today, it felt more like there was a central plot, and one really appealing character driving it. Yoon Shi-yoon is so perfect in this, playing up the ridiculous parody elements of the character, who is a pastiche of all those stars we once loved who seem kinda corny now, but also not forgetting to give Hyun-jae a brain and a heart and a driving motivation of his own.

We don’t exactly know what that motivation is, at least with regard to his 1993 self and that shady money incident, but I’m curious to know what happened, and anticipate a twist or two to subvert expectation on that one. Right now it looks like he pulled a fast one and stole money, but I’m recalling that Kwang-jae’s voicemail referenced something getting more out of hand than they expected, which makes me wonder if it was an orchestrated plan that went awry when Hyun-jae disappeared. Maybe there’s a reasonable explanation for everything, or appropriately extenuating circumstances. Or heck, maybe it’s what it looks like and Hyun-jae’s been zapped to the future as penance.

What really worked for me was the fast-paced sense of humor, the whippy editing that services the comedy (sometimes it’s the editing that provides the punchline, not the joke itself), and the relentless jokes. While it may have been a risk to be so aggressive with the jokes in the premiere before we got to situate ourselves in the world, now that we do have proper context, I’m all for the humor train to continue.

I do wonder if part of the appeal may be affected by generational or pop-cultural references, because there’s a lot in here that I find hilarious because I remember the source material being parodied. But if a newer or younger viewer didn’t, would the humor fall flat, or sail over heads? I’m not sure. I believe a drama should always stand on its own regardless of ancillary knowledge, and I think The Best Hit is legitimately funny; I think of the ‘90s jokes as Easter egg type humor, where one’s enjoyment isn’t diminished by not knowing exactly what’s being referenced. But maybe this will vary for people.

I’m eager to see how the plot will unfold, because I’m wondering where this is headed and how it could possibly resolve. While we’re in high comedy mode, there are plenty of laughs to be mined, and I love the fish-out-of-water trope, especially when someone from the past gets beamed to the future. (Rooftop Prince can still make me cry in laughter at some of their jokes.) It’s just, where do we go after that? I’m crossing my fingers that the show’s got an answer and a direction, and will take us there without losing its light, zippy touch.

I do respond to the chemistry of the characters, both romantic and non-romantic, which is buoyed by appealing performances (particularly by Lee Se-young as Woo-seung, Yoon Shi-yoon, and the doofy sidekick MC Drill, who I just realized is Taeyang’s hyung in a perfect bit of casting). Woo-seung has a refreshing vibe with her cool attitude but hot-headed temper, and Lee Se-young has a really quippy delivery that gives her lines an extra zing. At first I thought I wanted model student Ji-hoon to win over his crush, but the more I saw Woo-seung with Hyun-jae, the more I warmed to their sparking chemistry. Kim Min-jae/Ji-hoon is well-cast here, because he seems like an upstanding, decent boy who will never be the charismatic bad boy, and it makes sense to me to find him a nice person who tends to fade next to the bolder characters around him.

The first time the whoops-I-fell-on-your-lips scenario was trotted out was mildly funny, the second time was a little funnier, and by the third time it rolled around it was rake-gag hilarious, particularly since each of the kisses had been set up well in advance with believable setup. After three kisses in one episode we can’t miss the big glaring sign that this is our central couple, and I’m relieved to be fully onboard, even with Bo-hee off on the side. But she’s lived 24 extra years and moved on with her life, and Hyun-jae has to deal with having skipped a bunch of time without actually experiencing it, and in that I’m seeing him more aligned with the youthful rooftop trio. Now there’s a hapless foursome who’s in for some excitement.

More than love stories, though, I’m pulling for Hyun-jae to settle himself in this strange new world that has moved on without him (although not before encountering tons of embarrassing hijinks, of course!), and figuring out his place in it. Bonus points for extra singing and dancing!

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• Premiere Watch: My Sassy Girl, Seven Day Queen, Best Hit, Duel
• Yoon Shi-yoon shows off his idol genius in The Best Hit
• Cha Tae-hyun brings in several high-class cameos for The Best Hit
• Retro fun at the world’s hottest attic room in The Best Hit’s new posters
• ’90s idols and accidental kisses in KBS’s The Best Hit
• Lee Kwang-soo makes cameo appearance in The Best Hit
• Carefree twentysomethings of idol variety-drama The Best Hit
• Cha Tae-hyun joins variety drama The Best Hit as actor and director
• KBS variety drama The Best Hit casts Yoon Shi-yoon, Kim Min-jae