TV pairings: an evolutionary study

I realize that the title of this post might seem a little heavy-worded, but I really couldn’t really think of a good way to summarize this topic. Hopefully my meaning will become clear once I explain it a bit more. I got the idea to write this post last month, when some of the fall primetime premiers prompted me to reflect on one of the things I love most about the open-ended, multi-season format of US television: the evolution of TV relationships. By that I mean the inherent possibility of the medium to slow development of relationships over long periods of time, allowing viewers to watch them change drastically from what they originally were and grow slowly towards what they will become. This cannot be achieved in the same way in other media such as movies, dramas, or miniseries, which are more limited in scope. Of course these kinds of developments are a long time in the making, and aren’t usually the main focus of a given show on an episode-to-episode basis, but sometimes the emotional payoff is just that much greater in the end. Yet whenever shows alter the relationships between main characters they the risk of changing the characters themselves too drastically, which is never a good thing. You don’t want to see a beloved character going against the grain for no good reason. And yet it can be such fun to watch them cope with the awkward, uncomfortable realization that they’re seeing things (and people) in a new and different light. It’s a high-stakes game that sometimes backfires on writers, and sometimes makes for the most interesting and enjoyable television out there. If this isn’t making any sense yet, please bear with me, and hopefully it will.

You may have noticed that the title of this post reads “TV pairings” and not “TV relationships in general” and that’s because I’m going to focus on the romantic ones. More specifically, I’d really like to talk about something I refer to as "evolved pairings", which I define as TV pairings that occur some time relatively late in a series between two central characters who were not previously romantically linked. That might sound kind of specific, but it’s actually a relatively common trend. Yet I’m not just talking about couples with lots of romantic vibes who somehow manage to keep delaying the inevitable (à la Luke and Lorelai); I'm talking about the ones that somehow come together after having a decidedly un-romantic relationship for a long time. So if we were to take Friends as an as an example, Monica and Chandler would be an evolved pairing whereas Ross and Rachel would not. While Ross and Rachel were highly anticipated right from the series' pilot, Monica and Chandler would have been impossible for season one viewers to predict. When relationships start changing in a series, as Monica's and Chandler's did in season 5 of Friends, it can be a lot of fun for long-time viewers who know all their history. And so this was a really long intro for my topic, but today I'd like to talk about some "evolved pairings" that I've really gotten on board with in the past.

Buffy & Spike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer): The first example on my list of awesome evolved pairings is a little on the old side, relatively speaking (the show’s been off air for over six years), but it’s a classic example and one of my favorites. Spike was introduced as a major villain to Buffy’s hero in season 2, but he would eventually become something much less easily defined; he was extremely popular with fans and became first a recurring character in seasons 3-4 and then a leading role in seasons 5-7. Over the years, Spike was slowly given tons of backstory and meaty development, and I still consider him to be the most complex and compelling character in Buffyverse. He’s in turns hilarious, sympathetic, and downright pathetic. In one of the most famously quotable shows of all time, Spike often had the best lines. One of his most well-known utterances is this: “Love isn’t brains, children. It’s blood… I may be love’s bitch, but at least I’m man enough to admit it.” (Ha! He’s not even talking about Buffy in this one, but it’s still great, no?) Of the two, Spike is definitely the first to develop romantic feelings for Buffy, slowly (and painfully) falling for her over the course of season 5, and it’s quite a long time before she sees him as anything but a monster. When I say that the Buffy/Spike pairing works, I don’t mean that they have a happy ending, because they don’t. I just mean that they had great chemistry, and that for a couple that started out on opposite sides of nearly everything they had a relationship that people really cared about and wanted to see happen. Yes, it was painful at times, and yes it went some really weird places (season 6, anyone?), but ultimately it was one of the things that made the show so popular. It’s amazing to think about where they started out in season 2, and where they ended up five years later in the series finale, and the epic journey that happend in between.

Barney & Robin (How I Met Your Mother): This example is a bit more contemporary than the first, as the show is still airing, and one of it’s hottest topics right now is the couple in question. Robin is first introduced to the show as the primary love interest for main character Ted in seasons 1 and 2 (although it’s revealed in the pilot that she is not the titular “Mother” of Ted’s future children, to whom future Ted narrates the entire series). Barney, meanwhile, is Ted’s eccentric and totally hilarious friend, who also happens to be a shameless womanizer. Although Barney is primarily played for laughs (Neil Patrick Harris is a hoot), what really makes him interesting are his rare flashes of real sensitivity. This includes the way he deeply and very genuinely cares about his friends, for example, and of course his feelings for Robin. After their spontaneous, "one-time-only" hookup in season 3, it was tremendous fun to watch the skirt-chasing Barney struggle to accept that there’s a girl 1) whom he actually wants to sleep with a second time, 2) whom he doesn’t like to see with other guys, 3) who is also one of his closest friends, and 4) not to mention, their mutual friend’s ex. Poor guy! For her part, Robin's also kind of a one-in-a million character: a "sophisticated, scotch-swilling, cigar-smoking, red-meat-eating, gun-toting New Yorker” who's also very loveable, and Canadian. We're supposed to believe that in a bizarre way, they're actually kind of perfect for each other. Does it work? I actually think this one's a bit of a stretch, but I'm willing to go along with it becase it's just so much fun and I adore this show. (Btw, this recap clip does a much better job of summing up their relationship than I did.)

Logan & Veronica (Veronica Mars): Man, this was such a great show. And one of the great things about it (but certainly not the only great thing) was all the Logan/Veronica LoVe that happened. She's the petite, blonde, tough-as-nails, hardboiled teen detective with all the quippy one-liners. He's the spoiled, rich bully with an abusive past and deep-rooted insecurities. Their relationship - is complicated. You can read a 5,000-word summary of it on wikipedia. All I'm going to say here is that in spite of Veronica introducing him to us as her school's "obligatory psychotic jackass" in the pilot voice-over, they actually turned out to share a very intense, and often quite sad, but totally awesome relationship. Now that's what I call relationship evolution.

Blair & Chuck (Gossip Girl): I actually almost didn't include this one since they first hooked up kind of early on (half-way through season one). Yet if you just look at the show within the context of that first season, it works. They didn’t officially get together until much later, and, more importantly, their pairing caught me completely off guard, and then really swept me up in its intensity and general epic-ness. Considering these two weren’t even on each other’s radar at first, I’d say they’ve earned their spot on this list. Blair is the quintessential Upper East Side princess (rich, controlling, self-centered), but with her own share of insecurities and a fighting spirit it’s hard not to admire. It’s not until her perfect little world starts to crumble that she first turns to Chuck for comfort. She and Chuck have always known each other (the UES set is an small and exclusive one), but he was definitely not part of her plan. He’s kind of a wonanizer, and just about the only person on earth who’s as manipulative as she is. Unsurprisingly, their first fling ends rather messily, but that doesn’t mean the feelings weren’t real. Quite the contrary, especially on his part. I really liked their storyline back in those days. They’re both interesting characters, and it was really fun to watch them together; they had this great rapport, and even when they were being truly horrible to each other you knew that deep down they really cared. Unfortunately, I think that their storyline, like the show itself, has gotten a lot less exciting over the past season. These days, I’m mainly watching for the fashions.

Lois & Clark (Smallville): Okay, so Lois Lane and Clark Kent are one of the most iconic couples in the cannon. So what, you might ask, are they doing on a list of romantic relationships that develop from strictly unromantic ones? Because on Smallville, that’s exactly what happens. The show, as people generally know, tells the story of Superman’s youth, and is based very loosely on the Superboy Adventure Comics. When the character of Lois Lane was first introduced in season 4, her relationship with Clark was quite different from the one we all know and love from the Superman cannon. They shared a sort of grudging respect, but for the most part they just annoyed each other. It was almost like a brother-sister kind of vibe. And yet over the past five years they’ve been slowly but steadily growing closer in a way that’s been really great to watch. Smallville’s definitely a story with an endgame, but that certainly doesn’t mean there’s no dramatic suspense. The whole premise of Smallville is to show how things were before they got to be the way we know, and the show often does so in unexpected ways, especially with Lois and Clark. The development of their relationship has been, in my opinion, THE highlight of the series, especially recently. When I remember how little I cared for this show in its earlier seasons, it’s amazing how much I now anticipate each week’s episode. And I think the Lois/Clark relationship has a lot to do with that.

There are probably lots of other TV pairings that fall into this category, but these are the ones I thought of first and the ones to which I’ve paid the most attention recently. Besides, this post has gotten kind of long and I’m kind of burnt out.