Greatest TV Relationships, Part II

I've written before about my favorite couples on television, but this is a slightly modified list. I wrote it for my newspaper, so I tried to pick a variety of couples, and excluded a few that I personally love but aren't necessarily the best choices for a list of the greats.

"A few weeks ago, The Office cordially invited us to the wedding of Jim Halpert & Pam Beesly. Of all the romantic relationships that have been portrayed on television, few are as genuine or as full of love as the one between the adorable salesman and the soft-spoken receptionist. The phrase “made for each other,” which is perhaps overused, definitely applies to Jim and Pam.

Currently in its sixth season on NBC, The Office has been building to this point from the beginning. Remembering the sweet journey that brought Jim and Pam to getting married, the groom himself put it best in his rehearsal dinner speech: “Four years ago, I was just a guy, who had a crush on a girl, who had a boyfriend. And I had to do the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do, which was just to wait. Don’t get me wrong—I flirted with her. For a really long time, that’s all I had. Little moments with a girl who saw me as a friend. And, a lot of people told me I was crazy to wait this long for a date with a girl I work with, but I think, even then I knew that…I was waiting for my wife.”

In thinking back over the relationship between Jim and Pam, I started to make a mental list of the best television couples. Then I wrote the list down. Here it is:

Eric and Tami Taylor, played by Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton, Friday Night Lights. In a show so real that it transcends television, these two have a marriage that is a true partnership. Sure, they have arguments and struggles—over money, over raising their teenage daughter, over problems at work—but you never doubt that they will get through it together, with honesty and love. You need only watch the Season 1 finale, “State” to understand why the Taylors are included on this list.

Buffy Summers and Angel, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. They were a human/vampire couple before it was cool to be a human/vampire couple. In fact, they resisted their relationship until they were powerless to stop it. She was the Slayer, the Chosen One whose life mission was to fight the forces of evil, and he was one such force of evil. But he had been cursed with a soul. He was a vampire tormented by all his monstrous acts, seeking redemption by helping those in need. Buffy and Angel faced demons and apocalypses on a daily basis, and that was the easy stuff for them. The obstacles: he lost his soul, she had to send him to a hell dimension, he moved away because he could never give her a normal life, she died for a few months… Viewers saw the depth of their love by how much pain they felt over each other, but what’s more—viewers saw their love was eternal because, in the midst of their messed up lives, being together brought them the greatest happiness they had ever known, or ever would know.

Sydney Bristow and Michael Vaughn, played by Jennifer Garner and Michael Vartan, Alias. When a double agent falls in love with her CIA handler, things are never going to be easy. It took more than a year of unresolved sexual tension for these spies to finally come together. They had the cutest relationship ever, only to have their joy stolen away by an enemy terrorist organization. Don’t you just hate it when that happens?! Sydney was abducted, and her death was faked. Two years later, she awakened with no memory of what happened to her, expecting to return to the comforting embrace of her boyfriend, only to find that Vaughn had married someone else in her absence. Of course, his wife turned out to be a traitor to America, and they killed her. When Sydney and Vaughn did resume their relationship, they were a more world-weary couple with all their new baggage, but they did not allow it to harden them. Their love was as strong as ever, and they went on to find peace in marriage and in a son and daughter.

Lorelai Gilmore and Luke Danes, played by Lauren Graham and Scott Patterson, Gilmore Girls. For the first four seasons of this show, the timing was never right for them. One would have feelings for the other, one would be in a relationship with someone else, one would do something that created major tension in their friendship. It took a self-help book and decisive action to make them wake up and realize that they were in love. Annoying plot contrivances in later seasons drove them apart for a little while, but the whole world could see that the Luke and Lorelai relationship would last when they were eventually reunited.

Veronica Mars and Logan Echolls, played by Kristen Bell and Jason Dohring, Veronica Mars. They hated each other at first, but somehow, in spite of themselves, they became friends and developed an undeniable attraction. Logan could be immature and overprotective, and Veronica had some serious trust issues. They still make this list because they brought out the best in each other, and their love was strong enough to keep them connected even when they were broken up. They have some fundamental character flaws that keep them apart, but they’re still young and have the capacity to change. The show has been cancelled for a couple of years now, but fans continue to hold out hope that in the continuing fictional world, these two will end up together.

Temperance “Bones” Brennan and Seeley Booth, played by Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz, Bones. The non-couple couple of the list because it’s only a matter of time before they get together and live happily ever after. Theirs is a partnership in which completely opposite personalities complement each other to make an effective crime-solving team. She’s a brilliant forensic anthropologist who can tell you everything about a set of bones but lacks social skills with people who are alive. He’s an alpha male FBI agent with an innate talent at reading people. Booth and Bones have grown so much as human beings because of their work together. They have risked their lives numerous times to save the other, and demonstrated that they value their partnership more than anything. They might not be in a romantic relationship (yet!), but their chemistry is magical, and their love is no less than if they were an actual couple.

Chandler Bing and Monica Gellar, played by Matthew Perry and Courtney Cox Arquette, Friends. Ross and Rachel are considered to be the great classic couple in all of sitcom history, possibly in all of television history. Over the course of 10 seasons, those two were either on, off, or in a transition period. But in a far more nuanced storyline, Monica and Chandler became the stable couple of the show. A woman with OCD and a man with a fear of commitment, who were never more than friends, hooked up at a wedding and never looked back."

Some rambling

This another article I just wrote for my college newspaper. Per my sister's request, I am posting it here. Once again I had trouble staying within my word limit...

Cancelled!

Oh, what a cruel business television can be. Every year as the television season comes to an end, shows with actual merit get axed by the networks because, unfortunately, a show with "merit" does not always mean a show with "viewers." The injustice is that new shows often must pander to the masses if they want to stay on the air, thus stifling originality. If a show's creator and writers are unwilling to do this, they might actually produce something great, which doesn't necessarily have mass popular appeal and the ability to attract a wide audience. As a result, the network will view that show as not financially viable, mutter some nonsense about wanting to go in a new creative direction with their programming, and add another reality show about fat people dating (see: new FOX show, More to Love).

Granted, the sword falls on shows that deserve to disappear as well as those that don't. I know very few people who were sad to say goodbye to Lipstick Jungle, Moonlight, or Back to You. And I know even fewer who even remember the horribly painful Viva Laughlin, a crime musical set in a Nevada casino--it was yanked from the CBS schedule after 2 episodes. When a network gets rid of a show that deserves to continue, however, devoted fans become outraged. A few years ago, people started launching campaigns for their favorite shows when news indicated that they were in danger of being cancelled. They do this because, sometimes, it actually works. In 2007, CBS decided not to order a second season of Jericho. Fans started sending nuts in the mail to CBS studios, an homage to something that happens in a Season 1 episode. After CBS received about 40,000 pounds of nuts, they changed their minds about a second season and asked people to stop mailing them nuts.

Another one that has been able to survive despite ratings never being very high is Friday Night Lights, the show about high school football in Texas. It features some of the most realistic and inspiring acting, writing, and producing being done right now. Filmed in Austin, TX, the actors of Friday Night Lights have well-written scripts to follow, but they often improvise their scenes based on what flows naturally between their characters. They don't do rehearsals or use constructed sets or block out every movement. As a viewer, you forget that you're watching a television show because it seems so real--just normal human beings experiencing normal things and reacting in ways that we can all understand and relate to.

NBC could have made a purely business decision and cancelled Friday Night Lights after Season 1 or 2 because of its small audience. But, because it's so good, critics love it, as do the fans, many of whom are in the entertainment industry themselves. When it was being considered for renewal, people sent plastic "Save FNL" footballs to NBC, in addition to donating thousands of dollars to a charity connected to the show. For Season 3, NBC made a deal with DirecTV that would keep Friday Night Lights on the air. It was recently announced that this deal was renewed for a fourth and fifth season.

But these are exceptions to the rule. In most cases, fans can write letters and sign petitions until they are blue in the face, but that is not going to stop studio executives from canceling a show. A notable example is Veronica Mars, the show featuring Kristen Bell as a witty teenage private investigator who solved small cases for her fellow students in addition to big crimes in her town. The CW waited until the last minute to decide not to order Season 4, resulting in a frustrating and unsatisfying conclusion. Another example is Pushing Daisies, from the whimsical imagination of creator Bryan Fuller (the follow-up to his equally unique Wonderfalls, also cancelled before it had a chance to prove itself). Pushing Daisies is about a pie-maker named Ned (Lee Pace) who has the ability to bring things back to life with the touch of his finger. After growing up with this gift, he has learned certain rules that come with it, one being that if he revives something and then touches it again, it will be dead forever. So when Ned's childhood sweetheart is murdered, he goes to see her body in the funeral parlor and can't help himself--he touches her, knowing that he will always love her but can never touch her again.

Among the rest of the taken-too-soon shows, there are some whose cancellation still hurts the fans who loved them, such as Judd Apatow's clever, short-lived series Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared. Joss Whedon's sci-fi western, Firefly, remains one of the greatest travesties ever committed by the FOX network, which did not even allow its final episodes to air so that people could have closure to the first and only season. FOX's mistake is clear, given that even now, 5 years later, it has a cult following of people known as Browncoats who gather for conventions around the country on a regular basis.

A show does not need to have a small number of episodes to be considered "cancelled too early." Sometimes it's just when the people who make a show want to get one more season to finish their story but are denied. Gilmore Girls is one such show. It had 7 seasons, which is a pretty long time, but executive producer Daniel Palladino wanted to conclude with the eighth season and without that opportunity could not bring the plotlines to a satisfying end. As someone who loves television and watches a lot of it, my greatest wish is always that a showrunner gets to decide when is the right time to stop. For Ricky Gervais' British comedy Extras, it was only 2 seasons. Ronald D. Moore decided upon 4 seasons for Battlestar Galactica. Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse announced a couple of year ago that they had mapped out LOST to finish after its sixth season in 2010. In each of these instances, the producers knew how long they could create good stories and, with permission from their networks, were given that control. The result is a set of episodes that represent a complete history of the characters and the world in which they live. Like the Harry Potter books, you can return to those shows on DVD and rewatch them from the very beginning, knowing that there is an ending--no ambiguity, no abrupt stop. Unfortunately, networks are rarely inclined to give that much power to a show's producers. They make their decisions based on Nielsen ratings and advertising revenue.

There is a ray of light for those who want to find shows with the creative freedom and potential to become true genius: the recent rise in original programming from cable channels. The same things can be said for all of those channels--they give their shows time to grow. The fear of being axed is not constantly looming over their heads. The results? FX's Rescue Me, the show from Denis Leary about post-9/11 firefighters in New York City; TNT's The Closer, starring Kyra Sedgwick as an LAPD Chief with Southern manners and a twang who specializes in getting criminals to confess; USA's Burn Notice, about a former spy who was fired and got trapped in Miami, where he helps people fix their fraud/kidnapping/extortion problems while he searches for the people who made him lose his job; AMC's Mad Men, Matthew Weiner's show about advertising executive Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and life in New York in the 1950's. These examples are representative of what cable has to offer--and that doesn't even get into premium channels HBO and Showtime that produce shows like The Sopranos, Dexter, Big Love, True Blood, and Weeds, that push the boundaries in what television can portray.

Every one of these shows is completely original and fascinating. They are all critically-acclaimed and award-winning. The reason--their showrunners are given free rein to follow their vision and have intricate characters and stories that evolve over time. Were these same shows produced by one of the networks instead, they would feel pressure to make their early episodes flashy so that they could instantly draw in many millions of viewers. Gone would be the slow development and subtlety of these cable shows. Networks definitely have a few quality shows to offer, but they could take a lesson in creative practices from the cable channels, or perhaps just take themselves out of the strictly business mindset as they have on those certain occasions. They may find that they achieve a legacy of consistent greatness that will outlast a few Nielsen numbers and money from some 30-second commercials.

Marathon #2: Veronica Mars

Veronica Mars is the new love of my life. Not since Sydney Bristow have I found a female character written so well. I tend to think most of the girls on television are annoying/not cool/emotionally psychotic. Veronica certainly has her flaws, but they don't overpower all of the qualities that make her so admirable.

It's impossible to talk about this show without discussing the amazing relationship between Veronica and her dad. Their banter is hilarious and much like the way that Lorelai and Rory talk to each, except slower. (One of my favorite scenes is when Veronica walks in and her dad is sitting on the couch. She says something about how she comes home after a hard day's work to find him eating bonbons and reading Harper's Bazaar. When he fails to offer a witty quip in response, saying he's not in the mood, she says, "Amuse me, dammit! Amuse me now!") Their mutual love and respect is constant and evident by everything that they do. I'm not ashamed to admit- there were tears streaming down my face when Aaron Echolls had her locked in that box and her dad comes to rescue her. Aaron has poured gasoline all over the place, he and Keith fight each other, and Aaron sets the deck on fire. Veronica's screaming and crying, and her dad doesn't even hesitate: he walks through the flames to free her before collapsing. Even in the normal, everyday things like making dinner for each other, they are completely adorable.

I can't even talk about the ending without getting upset. It's one of the great injustices of the world (in the perspective of my t.v.-dominated life, of course) that Veronica Mars got canceled. It certainly hadn't run its course yet, and Rob Thomas/Kristen Bell/everyone else involved deserved so much better than the ending they had to make. I don't know what it would have been like if Season 4 were about Veronica in her first year at the F.B.I. with no more Wallace, Logan, et al, but I do know that I would have been willing to follow that show anywhere.

Favorite episodes include "Donut Run," "Mars, Bars," "My Mother, the Fiend," and "The Wrath of Con."


A great scene from Season 2