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How do you think a TV romance should be portrayed?

Joe Washington

Joe Washington

Fleet Captain
Fleet Captain
To those who have seen their share of TV romances like Jack/Kate, Buffy/Angel, John/Aeryn, and Jim/Pam, how would you potray a TV romance? As close to resembling a romance in everyday life as possible? Lovely-dovey? Twisted? Complicated? What?

Would have the will-they-won't-they-get-together dance between the love birds go on throughout the series only to be resolved in the series finale? Or would you take the risk of resolving it much earlier and actually showing the two in a serious relationship for a longer span of time?
 
The achilles heel of TV romances is that idiotic need to maintain sexual tension, as though the characters would be boring without it. If that's the case, your characters are the problem!

Example of how to do it right: Crichton & Aeryn on Farscape. Both characters are interesting. The gulf between them derives from who the characters are as people, and how they were raised. Crichton & Aeryn had sex early in the series run. Amazingly, they remained interesting! That's because the tension was character based, not contrived, and the dramatic tension between them remained.

Example of how to do it wrong: Chuck & Sarah on Chuck. Let's be blunt: if there was no sexual tension, the fact that Sarah is a very boring character would become glaringly obvious. The writers are keeping them apart so they don't have to go to the effort of giving Sarah a personality.

Instead, they should work on Sarah's character development so that a lack of sexual tension would not render her boring. They were onto something in the Christmas episode in S2, when Sarah killed a man in cold blood and Chuck was wigged out by it.

Remember that? Howcome that's been forgotten? Does Chuck have amnesia? Do his morals evaporate when Sarah bats her eyelashes at him? Nope, it's just an indication that as clever as the show is, it's written at a very shallow level that precludes anything too "real" ever happening. Yet if the writers had been willing to run with that idea, they could have come up with a character-based tension for Chuck and Sarah that would allow them to dispense with the sexual tension contrivance.
 
Well, two of the better examples of TV romances I've seen and thought were well done would be the Jeremy/Natalie romance on Sports Night and the Paul/Jamie romance from Mad About You. In both cases I thought they were funny at times, touching at times, and very believable that the people involved would actually be the kinds of people that would be involved with each other. Also, in both cases, there were periods of estrangement portrayed that actually caused me to be concerned for the well-being and happiness of the characters. For that to happen with me, it's gotta be some really good acting and writing going on.
 
I'd probably go with Dexter/Rita, pretty much (haven't seen S4 yet, though.) I like my relationships to be between damaged people who have difficulty connecting and who can be funny and bitter and charming and so on. Also dysfunctionally stable relationships over will they/won't they.

But if you must have a will they/won't they; Sam/Diane is required viewing (and the best example of such, period.) That may just be my all-time favourite TV romance.
 
John Crichton and Aeryn Sun are the standard for how to do a romance. Nothing has been matched it yet.
 
tomalak301 said:
John Crichton and Aeryn Sun are the standard for how to do a romance. Nothing has been matched it yet.
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Have you seen Mad About You? Because Mysterion is absolutely right about Paul and Jamie. They're easily the best US sitcom romance I've ever seen and rate right up there with John and Aeryn.

Additionally, I would add Steve and Sarah from the UK's Coupling. They go through plenty ups and downs, but in the end, they have a very sweet and endearing relationship.

John and Delenn in Babylon 5 are good, too, but that relationship is hampered in my eyes because I cannot stand post-season 1 Delenn.

Sadly, I can't comment on Jeremy and Natalie because I've only seen a few episodes of Sports Night and that was years ago, but I remember liking what I saw.
 
Adama and Roslin came to mind first. It was a beautiful love story especially since it was between two middle aged people as opposed to two young stars. Mulder and Scully is another favorite as it just developed. There was no made up conflict or ridiculous attempts to break them up with a stupid fight and then get them back together.

Desmond and Penny from LOST are great, too, although I don't know if we've seen enough of them to be able to judge it with the other romances you're talking about.
 
Temis the Vorta said:
Example of how to do it wrong: Chuck & Sarah on Chuck. Let's be blunt: if there was no sexual tension, the fact that Sarah is a very boring character would become glaringly obvious. The writers are keeping them apart so they don't have to go to the effort of giving Sarah a personality.

Instead, they should work on Sarah's character development so that a lack of sexual tension would not render her boring. They were onto something in the Christmas episode in S2, when Sarah killed a man in cold blood and Chuck was wigged out by it.

Remember that? Howcome that's been forgotten? Does Chuck have amnesia? Do his morals evaporate when Sarah bats her eyelashes at him? Nope, it's just an indication that as clever as the show is, it's written at a very shallow level that precludes anything too "real" ever happening. Yet if the writers had been willing to run with that idea, they could have come up with a character-based tension for Chuck and Sarah that would allow them to dispense with the sexual tension contrivance.
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I agree. Until recently, I actually stopped watching Chuck because I couldn't stand how the show was handling their relationship. Make up your damn mind and stick with. Chuck, as a character, has enough going on in his life and truly deserves to have some stability and loving girlfriend who is not agent of Fulcrum.

I did read somewhere that Season 3 will definitively address Chuck and Sarah's relationship. I hope that is true, because I think all the angst surrounding their relationship takes away from the show as a whole.
 
I did read somewhere that Season 3 will definitively address Chuck and Sarah's relationship.
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Probably will make us wait till the end of the year while they take the opportunity to throw guest bimbos and himbos at our estranged lovebirds. Trouble is, Chuck/Sarah has grown so annoying that I'll root for the bimbos and himbos to break them up permanently.

However, I now publicly swear that I will never root for Chuck to end up with Kristin Kreuk. :p
 
Joe Washington said:
Would have the will-they-won't-they-get-together dance between the love birds go on throughout the series only to be resolved in the series finale? Or would you take the risk of resolving it much earlier and actually showing the two in a serious relationship for a longer span of time?
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Getting things going right away is often times just the beginning. Six Feet Under did that and did it well. The show didn't play the "will they/won't they" bit with Nate and Brenda (one of the best relationships I've ever seen on TV by the way). There was personal and sexual chemistry right from the start. In fact, from the time they met, they were going at it constantly. And from there, we were taken on quite a ride.
 
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All if the relationships on Scrubs worked well although it took forever for JD and Elliot to get back together. Jim and Pam is pretty realistic along with Mulder and Scully. The best in my opinion would be Adama and Roslin. It should seem natural,people don't break up and get back together several times. They may break uponce or twice , but that's about it.I like Dr. cox and Jordan on scrubs because that's real marriage, love & hate. They love to hate each other and are miserable without each other.The relationships I hate and I would not do is every relationship on Smallville. I love Smallville, but I was so sick of Clark and Lana and wanted Lana gone after season 6. I wanted Clark and Lois from the time she showed up in season 4,but I knew it would be a while. I got sick of Lois and Ollie on and off stuff , then Clark and Lois on and off stuff. It gets really old really fast. One more relationship that I like is Sarah Sidle and Gill Grissom on CSI.
 
Joe Washington said:
To those who have seen their share of TV romances like Jack/Kate, Buffy/Angel, John/Aeryn, and Jim/Pam, how would you potray a TV romance? As close to resembling a romance in everyday life as possible? Lovely-dovey? Twisted? Complicated? What?

Would have the will-they-won't-they-get-together dance between the love birds go on throughout the series only to be resolved in the series finale? Or would you take the risk of resolving it much earlier and actually showing the two in a serious relationship for a longer span of time?
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You forgot Lana & Clark. :guffaw:

I think love has to be portrayed in a real way.

Showing 2 people in a serious relationship over a long span of time is better.
 
It's all Moonlighting's fault. The way they screwed up Maddie/David made an entire generation of TV writers believe that their two leads hooking up must be prevented at all costs.
 
I love what they are doing with Michael and Fiona on Burn Notice. They've already *been there, done that*, so to speak and the sparks still fly in spite of this.
 
sidious618 said:
Mulder and Scully is another favorite as it just developed. There was no made up conflict or ridiculous attempts to break them up with a stupid fight and then get them back together.
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I would name Mulder and Scully is a textbook example of how NOT to do it. Carter wanted sexual tension between them but didn't seem to have planned to have them hook up - just like he hadn't planned how to resolve anything in the show. The show never dealt with the question - just why the hell aren't they hooking up? Why isn't any of them making any advances, despite their sexual tension, the deep love they had developed for each other as early as season 2, the lack of any serious relationships - and, most of the time, any relationships at all - in both of their lives, over a period of several years; and the obvious jealousy the writers had them display whenever one of them would show a romantic interest in someone else. They should have addressed the issue, or at least dropped hints at what it was that kept Mulder and Scully from jumping on each other's bones. Even TNG, which was generally awful in handling romance, particularly when it came to the artificial way to keep Picard/Crusher and Riker/Troi apart, made an effort to explain what was keeping Picard and Crusher from starting a relationship ("Attached"). The X-Files could have tried something, like, say, examining whether Scully was Mulder's substitute for his sister and whether this was why he preferred a platonic relationship with her, or whether he and Scully had relationship issues because of past experiences, etc. Instead, the show kept playing the game of never addressing the issues in their relationship, trying to keep them apart for fear of destroying the sexual tension like Moonlightning, and juggling the fanservice to Mulder/Scully shippers with not alienating the anti-shippers who preferred a platonic relationship between the two. Finally, they had a guest character inform the audience that Mulder and Scully had hooked up off screen a year earlier! :rolleyes:
 
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