# TV romances that the show kept pushing despite the fact that it sucked **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 7, 2016, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712 "2016-06-07T03:30:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712/41 "2016-06-07T18:13:17Z")
Penny/Leonard. Leonard’s an asshole and there is no way Penny should be stuck with him. Maybe the show will throw a change-up in its last season and let Penny shack up with Amy and Sheldon. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712/42 "2016-06-07T18:18:32Z")
Gloria Trevi and Tony Soprano. ---
**Author:** ![Reluctant\_A](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/839c29/32.png) [@Reluctant\_A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reluctant_A)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712/43 "2016-06-07T18:37:44Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Penny/Leonard. Leonard’s an asshole and there is no way Penny should be stuck with him. Maybe the show will throw a change-up in its last season and let Penny shack up with Amy and Sheldon. Cannot disagree more strongly! The Leonard/Penny relationship is the only reason I even watch that show. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712/44 "2016-06-07T19:17:41Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > I never bought the Brenda/Fritz pairing on _The Closer_. She’d use him, she’d lie by omission, she did whatever she damned-well wanted to do, figuring she could fix things or apologize afterwards. He shoulda dumped her _way early_ in their relationship. She was selfish and he was too good for her. And I only watched the stupid show because my husband liked it… Brenda was a truly evil person, but the onus is on Fritz. He’s such a doormat. It’s funny to watch early episodes and see that all the signs were there. We yell “run away! run away!” but it doesn’t work. Watching Pope pine for her all the seasons is painful, too. It’s interesting to see Fritz on Major Crimes. Without Brenda around, he actually seems competent. And happy. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712/45 "2016-06-07T19:23:56Z")
Mork and Mindy. And let’s be honest; their baby didn’t look anything like him. ---
**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712/46 "2016-06-07T19:42:25Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > To be fair, it also kicked in when Angel and Cordy boned. True, it was all a simulation and took place entirely inside Angel’s head, but it did cause him to lose his soul. > [@Acsenray](#): > > That just reinforces the dumbness of it. It’s a “bone a hot girl” curse, not a “true love” curse. > [@Alessan](#): > > Except he \*did \*love Cordelia - he had just realized that at the end of the previous season. “True love” doesn’t mean “one true love”, you know. At the very least, he loved her as a friend. > > Remember, he did bone a hot girl in Season 5 (the werewolf chick), to no ill effect. > [@Acsenray](#): > > So the curse didn’t recognize true love until the boning? That’s my point. If it’s a “love” curse then it should happen when love happens, and that doesn’t necessarily happen in conjunction with bone. It can happen long before or long after the first bone. So, you guys didn’t [bone](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJDRdHVB-WI). ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712/47 "2016-06-07T19:49:16Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Nah - Robin and Barney worked, IMHO. Robin and Ted didn’t. More accurately Neil Patrick Harris and Cobie Smulder’s have excellent chemistry and worked very well. Josh Radnor worked well with a wall and nothing else. ---
**Author:** ![polar\_bear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ec9cab/32.png) [@polar\_bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/polar_bear)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712/48 "2016-06-07T20:55:07Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > So the curse didn’t recognize true love until the boning? That’s my point. If it’s a “love” curse then it should happen when love happens, and that doesn’t necessarily happen in conjunction with bone. It can happen long before or long after the first bone. The curse was never about “true love”, but about a single moment of “true happiness”… which apparently means an orgasm with a girl you like;). ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712/49 "2016-06-07T22:12:24Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > More accurately Neil Patrick Harris and Cobie Smulder’s have excellent chemistry and worked very well. Josh Radnor worked well with a wall and nothing else. I thought that Ted worked really well with whatshername–the actual mother who didn’t get enough play. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712/50 "2016-06-07T22:28:06Z")
I thought Sam and Rebecca in the latter half of Cheers’s run felt badly forced. They could have been just fine having a funny, sarcastic employer-employee relationship, but for some reason, the writers just had to insert a sense of sexuality between Ted Danson and the female lead just “because”, even though personality-wise, I don’t think they ever felt like a compatible couple. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2016, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712/51 "2016-06-08T01:32:11Z")
> [@polar\_bear](#): > > The curse was never about “true love”, but about a single moment of “true happiness”… which apparently means an orgasm with a girl you like;). That really amounts to the same point in my view. ---
**Author:** ![Garula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ea666f/32.png) [@Garula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garula)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2016, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712/52 "2016-06-08T08:11:48Z")
Angel’s “moment of true happiness” curse was always kind of dumb (Seriously, why would the gypsies think to include such an escape clause like that? It really makes no sense.), but it worked a lot better with respect to him and Cordelia than with Buffy. With Buffy, it was just he had a super passionate orgasm and turned evil. It didn’t really make much sense beyond an allegory for “guy turns into a jerk after getting sex” which was really all it was meant to be. With Cordelia, it was the culmination of him fixing all the problems in his life. In his hallucination he defeats the big bad without suffering casualties, repairs the frayed relationships between him and his estranged friends, and then has an idyllic moment with the person he loves while looking toward a bright happy future. I think that’s a much more mature take on what “true happiness” means. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2016, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712/53 "2016-06-08T08:35:29Z")
> [@Uosdwis\_R.Dewoh](#): > > Chakotay and 7 of 9 on Star Trek Voyager. That came out of nowhere and made no sense. There was no chemistry there. Didn’t help that Chakotay was as dull a character you could ever create. As a matter of fact, I think about the only character Seven had _less_ chemistry with was Kes. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2016, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712/54 "2016-06-08T10:30:57Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > I never bought the Brenda/Fritz pairing on _The Closer_. She’d use him, she’d lie by omission, she did whatever she damned-well wanted to do, figuring she could fix things or apologize afterwards. He shoulda dumped her _way early_ in their relationship. She was selfish and he was too good for her. And I only watched the stupid show because my husband liked it… I watched it for the crime plots, but I think it would have been a much better show with just hints of the characters’ personal lives here and there, like _Law & Order_. Or if we saw no more of Chief Johnson’s life than we did of the other detectives. You know, sometimes there was something relevant to the crime plot, like a bit with Provenza’s ex-wife (played by a character actress I like a lot), and her bulldog, that brought some of the twisted humor that made the show special (IMO). I used to DVR it, and FF through most of Chief Johnson’s personal life, anyway, after the second season. FWIW, though, I believed the Fritz/Brenda pairing, because I know couples like that in real life. I remember think their marriage wouldn’t last, though. Again, just like life. When _L&O_ got all personal with the LT in the last season, I knew they were gearing up for a series finale. I don’t believe the Cam/Mitch pairing on _Modern Family_. They’re both gay, but it takes more than that to make a romance. The writers did such a good job with odd couples who have real chemistry with the other two couples on the show, but totally failed with Cam and Mitch. Aside from that, they are a tell-not -show couple: we get told all the time they are in love, but we never see it. It’s writing 101 that you “show, don’t tell.” ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2016, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712/55 "2016-06-08T13:17:32Z")
Nobody’s mention Castle and Beckett? StG ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2016, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712/56 "2016-06-08T13:56:04Z")
Fonzie and Pinky. Just didn’t have any chemistry. Chandler and Monica. After years of being buddies, they find romance? Doesn’t work that way. Ditto the ill-advised Rachel-Joey fling. Janet and whatever the guy’s name was in Three’s Company that she married at the end. Too quick, too forced. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Lowry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Sam\_Lowry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Lowry)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2016, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712/57 "2016-06-08T14:19:09Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > I doubt I’m the only person who thought the Joey + Rachel pairing on “Friends” was pretty lame. I thought Joey and Rachel made more sense than Ross and Rachel. Ross and Rachel don’t even seem to like each other all that much for lots of the episodes, but they also act crazy sitcom jealous a lot of times. They also don’t have a huge amount in common, other than having gone to school together. It probably doesn’t help my opinion that I saw the episode last night where Rachel is frustrated with her entry level fashion job, and meets some guy who could maybe help her get an interview, and Ross becomes jealous and possessive. It would make more sense to me for Rachel and Joey to end up together, and Ross to end up with the scientist character that Aisha Tyler played, or some other character like that. > [@Fenris](#): > > I thought that Ted worked really well with whatshername–the actual mother who didn’t get enough play. I agree, Ted and The Mother had chemistry together, just like Barney and Robin. ---
**Author:** ![Reluctant\_A](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/839c29/32.png) [@Reluctant\_A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reluctant_A)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2016, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712/58 "2016-06-08T14:21:02Z")
> [@StGermain](#): > > Nobody’s mention Castle and Beckett? > > StG Why would anyone mention Castle and Beckett? Their romance made the whole show; there’s not even a point to the show without their romance, IYAM. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2016, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712/59 "2016-06-08T14:38:15Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Fonzie and Pinky. Just didn’t have any chemistry. This seems like the exact opposite of a romance that the show “kept pushing.” Pinky was intended to be an ongoing romantic interest for Fonzie. There was even a big publicity campaign around Roz Kelly as a new addition to the cast. But in actuality, she only appeared in three episodes, and then was dropped. She was briefly mentioned in a couple of later episodes, but other than that she never recurred again. They realized early on that the pairing wasn’t working, and got rid of the character. By contrast, Pinky’s sister Leather (played by Suzi Quatro) was later a regular character for quite awhile, but she was never romantically involved with Fonzie. They toyed with the idea of pairing her up with Ralph Malph, but I don’t believe that ever went anywhere either. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2016, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712/60 "2016-06-08T15:53:24Z")
> [@Reluctant\_A](#): > > Why would anyone mention Castle and Beckett? Their romance made the whole show; there’s not even a point to the show without their romance, IYAM. Exactly! It was Moonlighting done right. Now, it is well know that Stana hates Nathan, but it really doesn’t show in the acting (until maybe this last season). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-romances-that-the-show-kept-pushing-despite-the-fact-that-it-sucked/756712.md?page=4)