Shipper Wars: Favorite And Least Favorite TV Couples

[Luckylyn]

Why Can’t Fictional Guys and Girls Ever Have PLATONIC Relationships?

Sometimes friends to lovers works really well but sometimes it does seem cliche and lazy.

Some male/female platonic relationships I enjoyed: 

-Winston/CC New Girl

-Ron/Leslie Parks and Recreation

-Liz/Jack 30 Rock

-Amy/Howard  Big Bang Theory 

-Boo/Godot Bunheads (we only got one episode of this friendship before the show forgot about it but is was very sweet.   Godot was introduced as the hot guy that everyone lusted after but Boo had no interest in him.  I thought they had a nice dynamic and it’s a shame they show didn’t build on it. I love that he was the only one to call her by her first name instead of the nickname Boo)

 

Friends to Lovers that worked for me:

-Liz/Lucky General Hospital 

-Jake/Amy Brooklyn 99

-Felicity/Oliver Arrow (There was a point where the writing made me resent Oliver but before that this pairing was awesome to me)

Then there’s the male/female relationship that wasn’t a romance but doesn’t quite fit neatly into the platonic category:

John/Chiana Farscape - Sometimes they would flirt and at other times they would have a brother/sister dynamic.   They weren’t each others endgame but were aware of each other’s attractiveness.  They were close friends with some sexual tension that wasn’t consummated partially I think because John didn’t want to screw with the friendship but mostly because they were in love with other people.  Flirting was one way they communicated with each other but they never tried to hurt each other’s romantic relationships.   

[Luckylyn]

I just remembered a great platonic friendship on Boy Meets World Corey/Angela.  Angela was dating Corey’s best friend Shawn but they break up.  Corey tries to reach out to Angela but she rejects him saying they weren’t really friends and only hung out because of Shawn.  Corey spends the whole episode chasing after Angela trying to prove he can be her friend and eventually they bond.  Their friendship was really nice to watch but unfortunately the show forgot about it after Shawn/Angela got back together.  I hated that the revival show Girl Meets World forgot that Corey and Topanga were friends with Angela and she was just treated as Shawn’s ex who needed to go away to clear the way for Katie/Shawn.

Corey and Topanga fit the childhood friends to lovers trope but the show had a tendency to retcon their history.  Shawn/Angela were a great couple. I don’t hate Katie/Shawn (they had nice chemistry) but Shawn/Angela was more compelling.  I just think too much of the romance of Katie/Shawn was about pushing  things so that Shawn could be Maya’s stepfather.  Katie/Shawn did have a spark though and with a better build up could have been great.

[Abra]

1 hour ago, Luckylyn said:

Why Can’t Fictional Guys and Girls Ever Have PLATONIC Relationships?

I'll admit I didn't watch the video so not sure exactly what was mentioned,  but for me the ultimate platonic relationship is Joan/Sherlock from Elementary. The show never once tried to hint at a romance between them, but their non-romantic/sexual love for each other was clear. Platonic soulmates, if you will. :)

[Browncoat]

I will add Mal and Zoe from Firefly as an example of a good platonic relationship.

[Annber03]

Monk and Sharona, and then later, Monk and Natalie, are a couple other good examples for the platonic friendship list. 

[Popples]

I'm hoping that Frank and Lu on Shakespeare and Hathaway stay platonic. They act like brother and sister, where the teasing never has any sexual undertones to it.

[Bastet]

David (pansexual) and Stevie (heterosexual) on Schitt's Creek started and ended with a platonic friendship, but took a typical detour - after a stoned hook-up in season one, they had a brief friends with benefits arrangement before deciding friends was more important, so that was fine, but then for about five minutes they wrote Stevie as having romantic feelings for him, which was ridiculous (and so cliché that it would be the woman catching feelings).

While it would have been nice for it to have always been platonic - although then we wouldn't have had the great "I like the wine and not the label" scene - it's still one of my favorites.  Including how she instantly got along with his boyfriend (who became his husband), creating a great trio and not disrupting the friendship.

Maeve and Otis on Sex Education have a great friendship, so of course the writers are screwing it up by inventing romantic feelings (and throwing in a love triangle to boot - WTF, show?).

I took a quick scroll through my mental rolodex of favorite shows, and disturbingly few of them featured a truly platonic friendship between men and women.  I adored the friendship between CJ and Toby on The West Wing, but there was some sort of past and a continuing undercurrent there that got hinted at (and I did not mind that at all in their case, I'm just saying it's typical).  I liked Laura and Murphy's friendship on Remington Steele, but he carried a torch for her.  Ed and Holly settled into a beautiful friendship on Guiding Light, but they'd been married, so that's certainly off the platonic list.  Same with Elaine and Jerry on Seinfeld - they became friends after dating didn't work out, and that was great, but we're looking for friendships between men and women that were always friendships.

Angela and Rickie on My So-Called Life, Starbuck and Helo on Battlestar Galactica, Murphy and Frank on Murphy Brown, Maureen and Roger on Guiding Light, and Suzanne and Anthony on Designing Women are the only truly platonic friendships I came up with between men and women where both parties' sexual orientation means sex/romance between them would have been theoretically possible.

[ABay]

Have Diana and Tom from 4400 been mentioned?

[krankydoodle]

Veronica Mars: I loved Veronica's relationship with Wallace and wish he had been given more to do in the revival

24: Jack and Chloe. The way that series ended was a bummer, though it did prove how much they cared for one another.

Edited August 1, 2021 by krankydoodle

[Luckylyn]

I loved the friendship between Anthony and Susanne on Designing Women. 

[Bort]

2 hours ago, ABay said:

Have Diana and Tom from 4400 been mentioned?

If The 4400 hadn’t been unceremoniously cancelled, I’m sure they would’ve gone there with Tom and Diana. Seemed like they were laying the groundwork to me.

Sheldon and Penny from The Big Bang Theory is probably my favorite platonic relationship.

[JustHereForFood]

I liked Phoebe's friendships with both Joey and Ross in Friends, they were so different from each other, but both really worked. I also liked Monica and Chandler as friends who became a couple.

Other platonic friendship I liked is from Broadchurch, between Hardy and Miller.

And my absolute favorite platonic relationship is Will and Grace, but since they have incompatible orientation, they don't really count for this, I think.

[Blergh]

On 8/1/2021 at 9:10 AM, Luckylyn said:

I just remembered a great platonic friendship on Boy Meets World Corey/Angela.  Angela was dating Corey’s best friend Shawn but they break up.  Corey tries to reach out to Angela but she rejects him saying they weren’t really friends and only hung out because of Shawn.  Corey spends the whole episode chasing after Angela trying to prove he can be her friend and eventually they bond.  Their friendship was really nice to watch but unfortunately the show forgot about it after Shawn/Angela got back together.  I hated that the revival show Girl Meets World forgot that Corey and Topanga were friends with Angela and she was just treated as Shawn’s ex who needed to go away to clear the way for Katie/Shawn.

Corey and Topanga fit the childhood friends to lovers trope but the show had a tendency to retcon their history.  Shawn/Angela were a great couple. I don’t hate Katie/Shawn (they had nice chemistry) but Shawn/Angela was more compelling.  I just think too much of the romance of Katie/Shawn was about pushing  things so that Shawn could be Maya’s stepfather.  Katie/Shawn did have a spark though and with a better build up could have been great.

Thanks for reminding me of when Cory was actually a somewhat sympathetic character on BMW and, though he and Angela somewhat were awkward as platonic friends who each wanted to stay friends while she was staying friends with Topanga (and the two were staying friends with Shawn) , at least they were trying during Angela's and Shawn's break up.

I agree that it was awful on GMW how Cory and his uber rude offspring Riley were spiteful to Angela when ALL she did was walk into Topanga's cafe and ask to speak to Shawn.  Despite the fact that she'd been Topanga's bridesmaid, Topanga didn't attempt to call out either her spouse's or offspring's rude behavior- and, in fact, totally ignored Angela's presence. Even BMW enemies Minkus, Jennifer and Harley got more polite treatment on this show by the stars than did Angela. Ironically, apart than Shawn himself, Maya and Katy were the closest to being vaguely polite to Angela. They could have had her wishing Shawn and Katy well while proclaiming her love for her own husband- then all of them reconnecting and getting to know the younger generation but that's NOT what happened. 

Edited August 2, 2021 by Blergh

[Stats Queen]

5 hours ago, krankydoodle said:

Veronica Mars: I loved Veronica's relationship with Wallace and wish he had been given more to do in the revival

24: Jack and Chloe. The way that series ended was a bummer, though it did prove how much they cared for one another.

Wallace was great.

[AstaCharles]

Having just binged watched Ted Lasso this weekend, I really liked the platonic friendship of Ted and his boss Rebecca. Surprisingly sweet at times and it added depth to both characters , well done writers. 

[SVNBob]

17 hours ago, Luckylyn said:

John/Chiana Farscape - Sometimes they would flirt and at other times they would have a brother/sister dynamic.   They weren’t each others endgame but were aware of each other’s attractiveness.  They were close friends with some sexual tension that wasn’t consummated

Well, technically it was consummated, but there were time travel shenanigans involved.

[ratgirlagogo]

10 hours ago, krankydoodle said:

24: Jack and Chloe. The way that series ended was a bummer, though it did prove how much they cared for one another.

I loved Jack and Chloe, right from the start, down to the inevitably tragic end. I know some of you have been around since the TWOP days (three forums ago, isn't it?).  Remember when it somehow became an established "thing" that Mary Lynn Rajskub looked like a potato and thus Chloe's club nickname over there became Potato Face?  Christ on a fucking cracker. That was the precise moment when I stopped really participating in the forums for scripted shows.

[KWalkerInc]

On That '70s Show, I really liked the brief efforts they made at a platonic friendship between Jackie and Hyde, such as when he was teaching her about "zen" to try to handle Laurie's rudeness when she was dating Kelso.  Of course, they decided it had to go further than that, that he apparently couldn't be friends with both the main girls (though he had romantic feelings for Donna at first).  They became a popular couple, but it never worked for me.

[Luckylyn]

4 hours ago, SVNBob said:

Well, technically it was consummated, but there were time travel shenanigans involved.

Good point but I didn’t count it because of the time travel factor.  That version of John didn’t have the relationship with Chiana that our John does, but he will eventually in his future.   But then our John knew about Chiana hooking up with other John and didn’t interfere.  So maybe it does count.  Time travel complicates things.

[Avabelle]

On 8/1/2021 at 1:50 PM, Luckylyn said:

Winston/CC New Girl

I stopped watching midway through but these two were friends? 

[Bort]

There’s also the flip side of friends to lovers, lovers to friends. Ross and Rachel from Friends are a terrible example of this, as their ex status still often were points of contention when they were dating other people. But I thought Lois and Oliver on Smallville did this well. They started out dating, broke up, but maintained a good friendship afterwards.

[Luckylyn]

20 minutes ago, Avabelle said:

I stopped watching midway through but these two were friends? 

The Winston/CC friendship didn’t get going until the show was on for several seasons.  Eventually they became very close to the point that they had “Winston/CC Mess Arounds” where they would team up over something.  Winston hilarious kept pushing the the Mess Around phrase to be a thing.  She asked Winston to be her bridesman for her wedding. 

[Hiyo]

Back in the early 90s on General Hospital, I liked Lucy's friendships (however brief) with Luke and Sonny. Alexis and Jax were another good long time platonic friendship from that show.

Cass and Felicia from Another World were another good platonic friendship.

[roamyn]

Dan & Mazikeen on Lucifer is a good example of a platonic m/f relationship.  A little dangerous, since they had a murderer killed, but fun as well.

At least until episode 15 of S5.  😪

[Cloud9Shopper]

Throwing in my vote for another ER couple, although they were only featured for one season, Archie and Claudia. They’re so sweet together and really seem to care for each other. I just wish it had happened a season or two earlier because Seasons 13 and 14 of that show are difficult to get through.

I also liked the Banfields in that season, although I suppose it helps that Angela Bassett’s TV husband on ER is her IRL husband as well. Still, despite the fact that Cate has a sad backstory with the loss of their son, they have a solid marriage otherwise and it’s nice to see. 

[Dr.OO7]

Speaking of platonic relationships, All My Children's Jenny and Jesse.

To this day, their "Summer On The Run" ranks second only to GH's Luke and Laura's (no easy feat considering that they were only friends instead of lovers) and is considered one of AMC's best stories.

I honestly think that the writers wanted to pair then romantically,  but knew there would be too much backlash because of the racial difference (she was white, he was black) and that each was already part of their own supercouple and settled for making them best friends instead, because they went through as much turmoil as if they WERE a couple.

[Luckylyn]

On 5/31/2021 at 10:56 AM, Luckylyn said:

There’s a really great YouTube video about shipping.  It’s long but she includes time stamps in her description so you can jump to the topics that interests you. It’s really comprehensive covering pro-shipping, anti-shipping, fans harassing each other, race, gender, sexuality, intersectionality, problematic ships, etc…. It’s a good starting point for conversation.  She mostly discusses tv ships but also has a great section about Finn, Rylo, and Star Wars.

Purity Culture & Fandom

She brought up something interesting about performative activism and shipping where people will use support of a particular group to push their ship but don’t care about the issue in the real world.  It’s about scoring points so your ship wins but not really about addressing the issue.

 

 

Here’s another video about Pro-shippers vs Anti-Shippers that’s a great follow up to the one I posted before.  It’s long but worth a watch because it really deep dives into a lot of fandom issues.   I really appreciated one person in the comments saying “There shouldn’t be limits over what can exist but nothing is free of good faith criticism.”  You are free to enjoy what you like but others are free to express opposing opinions. Nuance should be allowed.  Harassment isn’t okay.  I will never understand the argument that “I am harassing this person online to stop harassment online.” Why can’t people disagree without threats and name calling?  Supporting or  not supporting a ship shouldn’t be taken to the extreme of being a mark against your character as a person.   There are things someone might find compelling in fiction that they would never support in real life.   I support speaking out about content you think is problematic but don’t support the vitriol.   Problematic content is allowed to exist and people’s opinions positive or negative about it should be allowed too.  Also what is considered problematic isn’t set in stone.  Two people can have very different opinions on what’s offensive. “Opinions are like assholes.  Everyone’s got one and thinks everyone else’s stinks.”  

[Mabinogia]

19 minutes ago, Luckylyn said:

There are things someone might find compelling in fiction that they would never support in real life.

I am oddly drawn to incest storylines. Not in an "I get turned on by it" way as much as I find the idea of it psychologically fascinating. I certainly don't condone it in real life though. Much like I hope that people who loved Twilight don't actually condone centuries old vampires hooking up with high schoolers. LOL

21 minutes ago, Luckylyn said:

Harassment isn’t okay.  I will never understand the argument that “I am harassing this person online to stop harassment online.”

This pisses me off. When people harass harassers. Didn't anyone ever tell then that bullying a bully makes you the bully? There is sadly no easy way to deal with a bully/harasser but the worst thing you can do if "fight fire with fire". It just hands them fuel to increase their fire. I wish people didn't have to tear others down to support their imaginary playmates, which is basically what fandom of fictional characters is, you're pretending these imaginary/fictional people are your friends/important enough in your life that you're willing to harass a real human who doesn't support them hooking up with another imaginary/fictional person. 

On the flip side, since not all shippers are horrible people, is the fun of finding people who like the same couple you do and imagining fun situations the imaginary couple can get into. Yes, you are still investing in make believe, but you're not lashing out at real people to do it. It's the attacking anyone who doesn't like your Ship part that I don't get. I've been a fan of plenty of unpopular Ships. I just avoid those who want to fight about it. Life's too short and tv and shipping and fandom is my escape from the world, not a place to dump all real world angst. 

[Luckylyn]

I like shipping and don’t see anything inherently wrong with it.  I like romance.  But it’s a problem when people take things to extremes.  I don’t like that shippers who aren’t bothering anyone are lumped into the same group as those you do harass people. 

Edited August 18, 2021 by Luckylyn

[Mabinogia]

4 minutes ago, Luckylyn said:

I like shipping and don’t see anything inherently wrong with it.  I like romance.  But it’s a problem when people take things to extremes.  I don’t like that shippers who aren’t bothering anyone are lumped into the same group as those you do harass people. 

Same. I can't think of any show I watch where I don't ship someone. lol (I love John and Aeryn so nice profile pic)😍

I think most shippers are actually romantics who just like to fantasize about a couple of character they really like. Unfortunately they aren't the vocal ones. The vocal ones are usually, like most things, the toxic ones who then get all the attention. 

Just for fun, my top three ships of all time: 

1. Gomez and Morticia Addams (The Addams Family): My true OTP who, if I were the type to fight over fictional characters, they would be the ones I would defend to my grave!

2. House and Cuddy (House, MD): Though I don't ship them any longer as I can't stand the show now, but for several years of my life they consumed me. I wrote about them non-stop, to the point I actually lost a temp job because I spent more time writing Huddy fanfiction than I did actually working. lol 

3. This is going to be a weird one but Regina and Jefferson (Once Upon a Time): I think that is probably my most controversial pairing as well, but they worked really well in my imagination. 

My favorite BFF pairings: 

1. Ten and Donna (Doctor Who): From the moment I saw them together I knew they were going to be my all time favorite Whovian pairing

2. Shawn and Gus (Psych): I mean, come on, they are total BFF goals

3. Hawkeye and BJ (MASH): I want to just hang out in the Swamp with those two drinking homemade gin and sharing barbs. 

 

 

[Luckylyn]

I love Morticia and Gomez.  So many shows have spouses act contemptuously towards each other.  Morticia and Gomez adore each other and it’s great to see.   

Ten and Donna are a great platonic pairing.  I really enjoyed that friendship so much.  Donna’s my favorite companion on Doctor Who.

[andromeda331]

I love Morticia and Gomez. It was so great to see how much they loved and adored each other. I really wish more TV and movie couples were like that. Gomez going crazy every time Morticia spoke French. 

[Mabinogia]

6 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

I love Morticia and Gomez. It was so great to see how much they loved and adored each other.

They are one of the few couples that give me the tingles. Their love and desire for each other was palpable. It is something I don't think can be acted without the actors having some sort of connection. John Astin has made his admiration and love of Caroline Jones known in several interviews and I think it shows. Not that they would be a couple off screen, or that there was anything going on between them, but you could see how much affection the actors had for each other and their characters. They were both very protective of their characters and the Addams'. 

I was too young to really think about it, but watching as an adult it is very clear that they were having a lot of sex, a vibe you don't really get on other shows of that era where couples were still shown sleeping in separate beds. Gomez and Morticia were sexy. I love when she's be all "deal with this issue now, woo hoo later". Not her words, but very much what she meant. 

[andromeda331]

22 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

They are one of the few couples that give me the tingles. Their love and desire for each other was palpable. It is something I don't think can be acted without the actors having some sort of connection. John Astin has made his admiration and love of Caroline Jones known in several interviews and I think it shows. Not that they would be a couple off screen, or that there was anything going on between them, but you could see how much affection the actors had for each other and their characters. They were both very protective of their characters and the Addams'. 

I was too young to really think about it, but watching as an adult it is very clear that they were having a lot of sex, a vibe you don't really get on other shows of that era where couples were still shown sleeping in separate beds. Gomez and Morticia were sexy. I love when she's be all "deal with this issue now, woo hoo later". Not her words, but very much what she meant. 

I've been watching it a lot lately since its on MeTV, they are such a great couple. There's the end of one episode where Morticia makes it look like their about to get romantic and they go into a room that has two separate beds with nails all over it with His and Hers written at the end of each bed. With those two its hard to tell if they were going to just lay down on the beds (since all characters on the show love relaxing on a bed of nails) or get freaky. Either way it really would work with them.

[BlackberryJam]

Shipping adds to my enjoyment of a show, imagining what could happen. I wasn’t big on kids shows, even when I was a kid, but I did like Morticia and Gomez. Hated the rest of the family though. 

I always resent it when someone talks about shipping as if it’s a negative. 

[Annber03]

4 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

Their love and desire for each other was palpable. It is something I don't think can be acted without the actors having some sort of connection. John Astin has made his admiration and love of Caroline Jones known in several interviews and I think it shows. Not that they would be a couple off screen, or that there was anything going on between them, but you could see how much affection the actors had for each other and their characters. 

I agree with you about how it helps when the connection's already naturally there :). I love when you can see that kind of natural chemistry between actors. Like you said, obviously it doesn't have to be chemistry in the sense that you expect the actors to be together in real life or anything like that (though it's cute when that does happen), but it is nice when you can look at a couple and be like, "Yeah. I can totally see/feel the attraction here." I've heard about how Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore had little crushes on each other on the "Dick Van Dyke" show, and yeah, that definitely comes through in their interactions :D. It makes the characters' marriage and romantic moments and whatnot all the more fun and believable :).

I've caught some of "Addams Family" on MeTV, too, in the evenings, and regarding Morticia and Gomez, that whole thing where she stretches out her arm and he plants kisses up and down her arm and neck, it all comes off very natural. It never feels forced or like, "Oh, right, this is part of the script, we have to do this now." Her stretching out her arm just looks like a natural, automatic reaction/invitation to her husband's romantic interest, and Gomez' "Can't keep my hands off you, you're so irresistible" reaction feels natural, too. Hearing that about the actors and how close they were, it really shows. I like that :). 

3 hours ago, BlackberryJam said:

Shipping adds to my enjoyment of a show, imagining what could happen. I wasn’t big on kids shows, even when I was a kid, but I did like Morticia and Gomez. Hated the rest of the family though. 

I always resent it when someone talks about shipping as if it’s a negative. 

Same. If it's not some people's thing, that's fine, and lord knows there's some shippers who are very...over the top in a way that can be incredibly off putting. 

But yeah, most of us who ship, like you said, it's just fun to imagine what could happen, whether it actually becomes canon or not. And if a show does look like it's going to put certain people together, for those who ship them, it can be fun to watch that unfold, too :). 

Edited August 19, 2021 by Annber03

[Mabinogia]

19 hours ago, Annber03 said:

I've heard about how Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore had little crushes on each other on the "Dick Van Dyke" show, and yeah, that definitely comes through in their interactions

They are another great couple. Rob and Laura Petrie. They just had such a natural, well worn (in a good way) chemistry. If you told me the actors had been married to each other for years I'd have believed it, so easily did they play off of one another. Hearing they had crushes on each other is really not surprising. It shows in how they looked at each other with love. Not necessarily lust, which is what so many people expect "chemistry" to look like, but actual pure adoration and love. They always looked like they wanted to be around each other, hear what each other was saying. 

While I do love a good sizzling passionate chemistry, I also very, very much appreciate and love the warmer "my lover is my best friend" type chemistry a pair like Rob and Laura had. 

I know they aren't tele but movies, but my all time favorite fictional couple were and always will be Nick and Nora Charles from The Thin Man movies. They had it all. The lust, the friendship, they pretty much perfected witty banter, and they had a competitive edge to their relationship where they were often trying to outdo each other, and rather than get pissed when they lost they seemed to admire their spouse for winning. (being from the 30s/40s there was some sexism but that was more a sign of the times than of their relationship in particular).

[Zella]

4 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

but my all time favorite fictional couple were and always will be Nick and Nora Charles

Nick and Nora Charles are the bee's knees. :) 

[Bastet]

1 hour ago, Zella said:

Nick and Nora Charles are the bee's knees. :) 

And the cat's pajamas.

To bring this back to TV, Jennifer and Jonathan Hart were no match - who would be for the incredible combination of Myrna Loy and William Powell - and Hart to Hart wasn't exactly stellar television, but it was an enjoyable show, and nice to see a couple who tease and appreciate each other, with wonderful repartee.  And, unlike Nick and Nora, they got to remain child-free, other than their dog Freeway (Asta should have been plenty for the Charleses, and Frances Goodwich and Albert Hackett wrote the pregnancy announcement as the end of the sequel assuming that would put an end to the franchise, but of course MGM wouldn't let it go and stupid Nicky Jr. was a blight on subsequent films).

[Katy M]

8 hours ago, Zella said:

Nick and Nora Charles are the bee's knees. :) 

Was that for me?  I'm trying to bring it back.

[Luckylyn]

I loved watching Hart to Hart.   That’s a great example of a happy couple.  

Couples who acted like they loved each other and didn’t do the miserable couple trope:

-Parks and Rec : Leslie/Ben, April/Andy, Ron/Diane, Donna/Joe(Donna almost broke up with Joe because of the lack of drama but then ends up happily married to him) .  Ron telling Donna not to confuse drama with happiness was one of my favorite lines.

-Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman - Scully/Mike

-The Good Place - Chidi/Elenor, Jason/Janet 

-Growing Pains - Jason/Maggie

-Friends- Monica/Chandler (I hated the Ross/Rachel drama and grew to hate that pairing by the end)

-Living Single - Overton/Sinclair

[Bort]

4 hours ago, Luckylyn said:

Couples who acted like they loved each other and didn’t do the miserable couple trope:

While they did date and break up early in the show’s run, Joe and Helen on Wings were great once they got back together. And they stayed that way and were solid but still fun to watch.

Also a couple I really liked from Wings was Brian and Casey. They loved each other as friends (and would occasionally fall into bed together) but not enough to actually BE a couple and they were also real fun to watch.

[Blergh]

28 minutes ago, kariyaki said:

While they did date and break up early in the show’s run, Joe and Helen on Wings were great once they got back together. And they stayed that way and were solid but still fun to watch.

Also a couple I really liked from Wings was Brian and Casey. They loved each other as friends (and would occasionally fall into bed together) but not enough to actually BE a couple and they were also real fun to watch.

IMO,  another positive was that all the above were excellent insomnia cures (as was the whole show)!

[andromeda331]

5 hours ago, Luckylyn said:

I loved watching Hart to Hart.   That’s a great example of a happy couple.  

Couples who acted like they loved each other and didn’t do the miserable couple trope:

I really wish there were more couples like that. I'm so tired of the miserable couple. The will they or won't they but can't put them together because it'll ruin the show. Or put them together and keep pulling them apart. Its really fun to watch a happy couple One that love each other, trust and respect each other and still have adventures and things. Jonathan and Jennifer were a great couple. They were very crazy about each other and we saw that often. But also had fun solving mysteries and crimes. Gomez and Morticia were another great couple. Happy and in love with each other but their show was still great and fun to watch. 

[Mabinogia]

17 hours ago, Bastet said:

To bring this back to TV, Jennifer and Jonathan Hart

I wanted to be Jennifer Hart so bad growing up. To have a loving husband like Jonathan, and a doggie like Freeway and go around solving crimes together. That is the dream. 

I agree about Nick Jr. (WHYYYYY!!!!! Oh, right, the 30s). 

Because I watched a lot of Nick at Night, I miss Nick and Night, I also loved Burns and Allen. Not sure they count as they were a real couple, but they had a great relationship as well. Sure, her ditziness drove him nuts, but he clearly loved her. 

I do wish writers would get over all the angst and write some strong, happy couples where the two partners bring out the best in each other, have some fun competition between them but are always there for each other and proud when the other succeeds. And don't freak out every time their partner looks at some other attractive person. 

 

[Luckylyn]

I don’t mind some angst for couples.  I just don’t like the ones that act almost like they hate each other.   Ups and downs in relationships keep things interesting but writers need to remember the characters are supposed to love each other.

Then there are couples that are toxic but compelling to watch.   sometimes drama is entertaining.

Also there are couples that aren’t toxic but the writer’s play the “will they/ won’t they” game too long and I don’t care anymore about if the couple get together anymore. 

[AstaCharles]

Going to add Scarecrow and Mrs. King. I had a crush on Bruce Boxleitner when I was kid.  I remember this show being fun

[Mabinogia]

21 hours ago, AstaCharles said:

Going to add Scarecrow and Mrs. King. I had a crush on Bruce Boxleitner when I was kid.  I remember this show being fun

That is a show I never got to watch, not sure why. Maybe it was on at the same time as something else I watched, but it did look fun. 

LOVE your name BTW. Asta was my first doggy crush. lol

[Peace 47]

On 8/18/2021 at 9:55 PM, Annber03 said:

But yeah, most of us who ship, like you said, it's just fun to imagine what could happen, whether it actually becomes canon or not. And if a show does look like it's going to put certain people together, for those who ship them, it can be fun to watch that unfold, too :). 

I’m a shipper at heart myself just because when I see two characters clicking with chemistry, my thought is, “Wouldn’t it be nice if they were everything to each other?”  I think (although I’m kind of just spitballing here) that I have noticed that there is more hostility to shipping (including by the showrunners themselves, not just general audiences) when the ship is not identified as endgame right away as a fundamental premise of the show.  Like sometimes, neither the showrunners nor the general audience want to explore a ship that has gained traction through a perhaps unintended, perhaps just teased, combination of chemistry, acting, writing and direction, and don’t like a portion of the audience (perhaps often women?) latching on to it.  (Maybe because it interferes with the artistic vision?)

I was just thinking about this in the context of posting in the “shows that ended badly thread” about Sherlock (BBC) (which I hate so I don’t know why I have written 2 posts in 2 days about it!).  The writers/ showrunners put in references to Sherlock’s ambiguous sexuality in nearly every episode for several seasons, had weirdly intimate moments like John putting his hand on Sherlock’s leg while drunk and saying that he didn’t mind doing it, had other characters reference in nearly every episode their assumption that the unusual closeness of Sherlock and John’s relationship meant that they were a couple (I guess for the lolz) and then got genuinely mad (as did a certain portion of the audience) when some other portion of the audience started to latch on to that theme and ship Sherlock and John.  And I don’t mean shippers who got weird about it, but just those who raised it as a legit reading of what is going on in the show-that seemed to drive some resentment.

But there are lots of other examples (Chris Carter’s hatred of Mulder/Scully comes to mind).  I contrast that with Jeff/Annie on Community, which I think the showrunner has acknowledged in interviews that while they didn’t fully go there on the ship (and just played around with it), they didn’t outright dismiss the traction it got, although on the other hand, maybe they did with that one episode that had an express mockery or homage (depending on how you see it) of a fan-made YouTube video of the Jeff and Annie ship.

I just sometimes wish there was more room to discuss non-canonical ships in general online discussions.  But if I want to read scene, theme or episode analysis of a non-canonical ship, Tumblr is actually a great place for that (if you find the right corners of it).

 

 

[JustHereForFood]

8 hours ago, Peace 47 said:

I was just thinking about this in the context of posting in the “shows that ended badly thread” about Sherlock (BBC) (which I hate so I don’t know why I have written 2 posts in 2 days about it!).  The writers/ showrunners put in references to Sherlock’s ambiguous sexuality in nearly every episode for several seasons, had weirdly intimate moments like John putting his hand on Sherlock’s leg while drunk and saying that he didn’t mind doing it, had other characters reference in nearly every episode their assumption that the unusual closeness of Sherlock and John’s relationship meant that they were a couple (I guess for the lolz) and then got genuinely mad (as did a certain portion of the audience) when some other portion of the audience started to latch on to that theme and ship Sherlock and John.  And I don’t mean shippers who got weird about it, but just those who raised it as a legit reading of what is going on in the show-that seemed to drive some resentment.

I found the writers' handling of that ship abysmal. They kept making references to it since the beginning and then complained that fans were shipping them, saying that fans were making it up. Stop gaslighting your fans! You started the conversation in the first place! Gross.