Re-watching Dexter*, it’s occurred to me that there really aren’t that many TV relationships where there’s a big age difference. There are more in movies, typically where the older partner is a successful male actor and everyone pretty much ignores the age difference. But in TV? ISTM like there are fewer such relationships than there are in real life.
So, there’s Debra and Lundy in Dexter - one of the most believable and touching TV relationships I’ve ever seen; there’s an age difference of over 30 years, but they seem so well suited to each other.
In Friends, Phoebe’s brother married a woman his mother’s age and for a while Monica dated a man her father’s age. Ross dated a younger woman and the age difference caused lots of problems.
Charlie in Two and a Half Men often dates much younger women, though most of his serious flings were with women close to his age. Alan married a younger woman. They both slept with the same much older woman once. Hell, there’s so much sex in this show that it’d be weird if age difference hadn’t been part of it eventually.
Any more?
FWIW, I’m defining age difference roughly by the ‘half your age plus 7’ approach. IOW, it wouldn’t be weird to have a 50-year-old dating a 65-year-old, but 20 and 35 is something most people would consider an age difference.
*I considered putting this in a spoiler box, but saying ‘spoiler for Dexter’ would have made it equally obvious who I was talking about, unless anyone thought that maybe Dex and Lundy were going to get it on.
Yeah, otherwise you’d have to include every 200-year old vampire who decides 15 year old girls are the appropriate social group to be hanging round with.
Age difference was the premise of an old Britcom called May to December. The lead female character, Zoe, was said to be 26 when the show started, and the man she started dating, Alec, was 53, more than twice her age.
Yes, and it was freaking gross. (Not the human terms bit, the idea that an ancient vampire would be dating a high school girl and think that was okay. And have anything to talk about with her.)
That storyline was a setup to explain Lisa Kudrow’s real life pregnancy: since his wie was so much older, she served as the surrogate for their triplets.The wife was played by Debra Jo Rupp, post-Seinfeld and pre-That 70’s Show.
Monica dated Richard, played by Tom Sellack, for a while. This gave a great episode, where her parents hear Richard is dating some young chickie. Monica’s father says he handled his midlife crisis by getting a sportscar. Conversation between Ross who knew about the relationship and Dad, who didn’t know who the chickie was:
Dad: I tell you what, Richard. You can use my sports car and I’ll…
Ross interupts: Dad, I’m begging you Do not finish that sentence.
Ross dated a young student and when her father, played by Bruce Willis, found out, he threatened to tell the university. THEN Daddie started dating Rachel.
Yes, she went with Drew. One morning he came downstairs in her bathrobe singing I Think I Love You, only to run into her son Chip, played by Donny Bonaduce.
Charlie Harper also dated an older woman for a while, and his mom Evelyn dates young guys as a matter of course.
On Cougar Town, Courteney Cox (45) dated a character played by a 21-year-old actor. (I don’t know the characters’ ages, but I think both were pretty close.)
Though it hardly qualifies as a “relationship,” I suppose. They dropped him after only a few episodes, and there hasn’t been much cougaring going on since then.
And as I recall, the relationship fell apart when Shirley met Drew’s mother (played by Marion Ross) and the two ended up reminiscing about the good old days.
