It’s that time of year once again. Red hearts, chocolates, dinner reservations, roses. And for some of us, essay deadlines, procrastination and, most importantly, our favourite streaming services. So, I’ve created a selected list of my personal favourite (and least favourite) TV show couples. (Warning: spoilers ahead!)

Best

Chidi and Eleanor – The Good Place (2016-2020)

Remember when Taylor Swift sang, “You know how to ball, I know Aristotle”? (I hope you remember – it was only last year). She wasn’t singing about her and Travis Kelce, but Chidi Anagonye and Eleanor Shellstrop. If you are a fan of the ‘soulmate’ trope, then voilà! In a show set in an eternal afterlife, the thought of finding love may seem daunting. After all, death can’t do anybody apart if death has already occurred. And yet, this couple finds each other in every reiterative timeline, until the very end. (This, by no means, means that I didn’t also want to see Eleanor and Tahani as a couple, they were lovers in one of the timelines, I’m sure).

"The Last of Us also stars Pedro Pascal, if you need any other incentive to watch it”

Anne and Gilbert – Anne with an E (2017-2019)

My annual Anne with an E rewatch never fails to incite happiness deep within. Based on the beloved children’s book Anne of Green Gables, Anne with an E’s core protagonist, Anne, starts the show as a young orphan girl, full of fiery wit and overflowing imagination. She strikes up a rivalry with Gilbert Blythe at school when she smashes a slate over his head, and, just like that, he falls in love with her. If you’ve seen the season 3 finale, then you all understand how tantalising Gilbert’s “What letter?” remark to Diana was. An enemies to friends to lovers narrative, which matures and blossoms alongside the young characters, leaves no room for protestations, only wholesome feelings and warmth.

Bill and Frank – The Last of Us (2023-)

The Last of Us is my favourite TV show (and arguably game) of all time. I was elated when episode three became invested in the relationship between the ruggedly reserved doomsday prepper Bill, and the artistic, social survivalist Frank. In the game, when Joel and Ellie travel to Bill’s house, they only find Bill. Frank had hung himself before the narrative started, after being infected by cordyceps. In the show, Bill and Frank die together, in a beautifully harrowing double suicide. Joel and Ellie are greeted by an empty house when they come to visit, as the dead lovers are concealed in their ventilated room. The episode is less than an hour long, and yet within it unfolds a beautiful, apocalyptic love story which surpasses most. If you haven’t seen the show yet, I would strongly recommend it. It also stars Pedro Pascal, if you need any other incentive to watch it.

Worst

Ted and Robin – How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014)

We all shed a tear at the season nine finale of this sitcom, and no, not because it was ending, but because the writers made a catastrophic mistake by allowing this pair to end up together. A heads up to any aspiring TV writers reading this, if you spend an entire 24-episode season focused on a wedding, don’t divorce the couple three minutes later, and immediately pair off the bride with the man she rejected numerous times.

“We all shed a tear at the season nine finale of this sitcom, and no, not because it was ending, but because the writers made a catastrophic mistake by allowing this pair to end up together”

Ross and Rachel – Friends (1994-2004)

This is a controversial take, and I can already sense incoming backlash. I grew up with this show, as many of us probably did, and it feels retrospectively devastating to me that during my early teenage years Ross and Rachel became part of my emulative template for potential relationships. Perhaps my newly-found disdain stems merely from one fact and one fact only: I hate Ross. He is not a good guy. He exhibits traits which most people wantonly avoid in a significant other – controlling, superior, homophobic, bordering on narcissistic etc. And seeing an otherwise strong-willed and ambitious woman we have watched mature for ten seasons end up with a guy like that is quite unsettling. Perhaps she should have stayed on the plane…

Every single relationship on The Big Bang Theory (2007-2019)

Once again, I can already sense some disagreements over this one. Whilst I’m a huge fan of The Big Bang Theory and its characters, objectively I cannot condone any relationship in the show. Howard and Bernadette are both insufferable. Leonard and Penny were forced together through incessant coercion on Leonard’s part. And Sheldon and Amy are, as funny as they may be, bad people. Forcing Sheldon to have a romantic partner when he shows no interest in the show to have one, even when he does have one, is silly. The potential for aromantic, or asexual, representation using Sheldon was abundant, but I guess that would be asking too much from writers in 2007.

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