Time Traveling (Rooftop Prince, Nine Times Travel and Mirae's Choice)

Time travel is one of my favorite themes be it in dramas or novels. But the problem with most of the time travel dramas I’ve seen is they don’t really satisfy. I find most of their endings unsatisfactory.

A good ending is the most important thing for me. I won’t complaint much about less than coherent storyline in the beginning or in the middle of a drama or both as long as they don’t give me a crappy ending.

But for time travel’s theme besides a good ending it is mandatory for the writers to sell the logic that is being used in their story to the viewers. I need to believe in, agree with or at the very least not fully against what is being shown to me.

Compare to time travel dramas, time travel novels are definitely better. Dared to Dream by Tammy Hilz Mc.C and A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Devereux are examples of time travel story that is beautifully and cleverly written.

Perhaps that is what is wrong with time travel dramas. They are not strong enough in the story department because they probably don’t have enough time to write stories that are captivating and making sense.

Delivering a time travel story that makes perfect sense is not an easy thing to do since time travel itself is an illogical theory.

Fortunately for the writers, I don’t need to be convinced that time travel is possible because despite knowing that it’s one of those things that will never be no matter how many people say ‘nothing is impossible’, I love the idea of time traveling.

But loving the idea doesn’t mean I buy it.

If we could move backward in time or move forward to the future things will continuously change and as a result we’ll lose the present as we know it. We’ll be trapped in a never ending circle.
However, I think the biggest argument against time travel is death.

If time travel is possible we could cheat death with our time machine. We could either go backward ten thousand years (giving ourselves extra ten thousand years) or go forward a thousand years (escaping the time of our own death).

If time machine exists it will become the hottest stuff on the market. Everyone wants to escape death. Everyone wishes to undo something in their pasts. Everyone is eager to know what awaits in the future.

We’ll have people traveling back and forth from the future and the past changing this and that. Time will lose its meaning. Even life itself will lose its meaning.

Mistakes are not something to be regretted and undo but they are valuable lessons to be learned. Death is not something to be feared and played with but it is something to be used as a reminder that time is priceless and that we should be prepared for what’s to come.

Time traveling is the most selfish and destructive act a person could do to other fellow human beings.We might not know how our decision to turn left instead of right at a cross road affects the life of others but they do. Everything is interconnected. So, changing one little thing in one’s life will also change the life of others.

One of the best time travel dramas I’ve seen so far is Nine Times Time Travel. I love almost everything about it. I love the way it shows how the past relates to the present. And I love how it shows that time traveling changes the lives of those around the male lead.


Despite its happy ending (sort of), Nine Times Time Travel could be used as arguments why time travel is something that should not be done (the lead travels back in time to bring back his dead big brother to life).

Just imagine if some evil genius billion years from now decides to bring back Hitler or Sadam Hussain or whoever the evil figures in a distant future to life and creates an Evil Forever Club. *shudders*

In a zero chance that time machines could be invented, time traveling should be outlawed now.
Having said that, no matter how illogical and dangerous it is, time travel is a fascinating idea. Nine Times Time Travel does an excellent job at delivering a good story. It is also succeeded in ending the story in a good way.

Ending a regular drama is a tricky thing but ending a time travel drama is even trickier. The Rooftop Prince is a good example of the messed up ending. I love that show but watching its ending I once again experienced the WTF moment that I experienced when watching the end of Lovers in Paris which by the way I also love.


I’m not a fan of reincarnation thing (personally I think it’s the easiest way out for lazy writer) but since it is the most common tool used in a time travel story I never complain. But what happens in Rooftop Prince is not even that.

The final OTP is not the one we watch and root for the whole series. The OTP is not the ones who fall in love with each other.The heroine ends up with a guy who happens to have the same face with the guy she falls in love with. While the hero ends up with the corpse of a woman who has the same face with our heroine.

Not exactly a happy ending.

Now, let’s talk about the latest Korean time travel drama, Mirae’s Choice or Marry Him if You Dare airing on Monday-Tuesday. It’s too early to say whether I’m going to love this show or not but so far (Episode 3) I totally love it. 


Unfortunately, this show brings forth the biggest problem that I have with time travel: Future Mirae meets the current Mirae saying that I’m you.

I is I. You is you. When I meet you it becomes us. You get what I’m trying to say? For me to be me, there should only be one me. For I to be I, there should only be one I. If there are seven  Is, say Monday I, Tuesday I, Wednesday I, Thursday I, Friday I, Saturday I and Sunday I who have a meeting in a room, they should have the same feeling on whatever issues being discussed and they should also think alike.

If they don’t have the same thoughts, don’t have the same feelings, don’t know what’s inside the minds and hearts of the other persons, they are not the same person.

Okay, I’ll stop now because I can feel the headache is coming. I just hope you understand that for me I is I. Although there are people who look like I they are not I.

In Nine Times Time Travel, the male lead who tries to cheat his own death by traveling back in time and ends up dead anyway leaving his bride at the altar broken hearted and me crying like a baby is the ‘I’ who I watch and root for.

That’s it. This talking about I meeting I drives me crazy. I’ll go and watch Marry Him if You Dare Episode 4 to cure my headache. Hopefully, it won’t give me another ache to talk about Is.

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