“It’s like a medieval catapult only with a fancier French-sounding name and that makes me think it would hurl you much further out to the frigid waters of the East Sea than a regular catapult if you ever bring me a script that has a pedestrian hit by a motor vehicle again,” says the producer.

Yes, “Strangers Again” can’t help itself from using this beaten to death and then cremated and the ashes buried beneath the deepest depths of the ocean terrible trope. Not just once but twice in critical plot junctures near the end of its run, the show reverts to the pedestrian accident to advance the story. It’s a capsulized version of The Issue with the show - lots of the little things work well and there’s some promising ingredients but when it has to set aside the less important storylines and supporting characters, attempts to advance the central story of the drama is an undercooked and awkward mess.

The show is part legal drama set in a smaller firm that mostly handles divorces and custody disputes. Kang So Ra’s Oh Ha Ra is the young star litigator who has a side gig on television. Her ex-husband, Jang Seung Jo’s Goo Eun Beom, has fallen on hard times since their divorce and is dodging landlords and other creditors. Before long, the two are back in the same office and reigniting (or rehashing?) their feelings, both warm and rage-fueled.

Also in the firm are the usual support staff that occasionally appear to have some side-plot about to emerge but it never does. And the co-ceos, the terrific Jeon Bae Soo and fantastic Kil Hae Yeon, were nice additions to the cast but their characters don’t allow them many opportunities to flex their considerable acting prowess. There’s also regular sideplots that last 1-3 episodes. Some thread together with the primary Ha Ra - Eun Beom storyline, others tend to provide no entertainment or other value other than to fill runtime, particularly one with Jeon Bae Soo’s ex-wife, an American and a dog.

Where “Strangers Again” shines is with the secondary couple of Jo Eun Ji’s Bi Chwi and Lee Jae Won’s Si Wook. Both are colleagues in the small firm, but begin as absolute opposites. Bi Chwi is a liberated, opinionated and adventuresome modern woman. Si Wook is buttoned-up and formal. What begins as an inebriated hotel hookup becomes a poignantly realistic portrait of two people who seemingly have no future as a romantic couple that find themselves unable to let go of each other. It’s marvelous work from both the writers that conceived of these multidimensional characters to the actors who bring them to the screen so vividly.

It seems like an entirely different crew was at work, however, with the Ha Ra - Eun Beom main couple. Neither character is coherently written - Eun Beom swings wildly and inexplicably back and forth with his feelings for Ha Ra while she is marketed as the “Goddess of Litigation” but she misfires at her job more than an Imperial Stormtrooper for the entire first half of the drama. The second half almost entirely drops the legal portions of the story for some standard family intergenerational trauma. Meanwhile, with neither a novel narrative nor mesmerizing characters to play, neither lead actor proves capable of rising above the mediocre material given to them. There are short sequences where the two leads are given better scripts so their more comic-sided talents can shine. And these happen often enough to emphatically crystallize what the show could have been with a tighter, more fun-focused script.

Some other minor issues - not strong work from the hair team. Kang So Ra, in particular, did not look like either a well-heeled professional attorney or desirable woman. The wardrobe people consistently put cast in clothing that was several sizes too large. And while there should be merit points for attempting an unconventional ending, it also warrants barbs for botching the execution. The destination it arrives at is a choice (whether it is THE choice a viewer wants or not is up to that individual) but it gets there by meandering through half an episode seeming to set up something much different, then plods through long sequences of unneeded redirects through minor storylines then with a perfunctory exchange, it simply ends.

Overall, it’s not something that can be recommended.