TV Romance

Gina Dalfonzo’s essay on love on TV:

Consider some of your favorite shows, and you may recognize the pattern. Some modern unwritten rule decrees that couples mustn’t marry until the end, or nearly the end, of a TV series, because it would ruin the all-important sexual tension. Yet this doesn’t preclude sex. They are allowed and even expected to have plenty of that, with each other and with others.

And that can warp a love story. Instead of being able to get emotionally invested in a couple’s growing attraction and root for them, we are stymied over and over again as one or the other ends up hopping into bed with someone else. Or we watch them share a bed for so long that actually making a lifelong commitment seems like an afterthought.

The makers of these shows still try to adopt the lingo and feel of traditional romance, sometimes with ludicrous results. I remember my faint incredulity when, late in Gilmore Girls’ run, one of the characters claimed that Luke had “waited” for Lorelai for many years. The speech was meant to be significant and moving, but all I could think was, Waited? In what universe does cohabitating with, marrying, and divorcing other women constitute waiting?

Even if the central couple finally ends up at the altar, the audience is often sick of the whole business by the time they get there. We are losing the idea of what “waiting” for the right person really means — of exercising patience, hope, and self-control while moving toward a strong, lasting relationship. Just about the only place on TV to find a romance like that anymore is Turner Classic Movies.