The names say it all. Sam and Diane. Dave and Maddie. Ross and Rachel. Mulder and Scully. Robin and Ted (or Robin and Barney, for that matter). George and Izzy. Chuck and Sarah. Nick and Jess. Fitz and Olivia. Danny and Mindy. You don't even need the show titles. (Though, for the record, we're talking about Cheers, Moonlighting, Friends, X-Files, How I Met Your Mother, Grey's Anatomy, Chuck, New Girl, Scandal and The Mindy Project.)
All are TV couples that fans wanted to get together (sometimes before even the characters - or the writers - did), rooted for them to get together, wrote impassioned pleas to get them together (and mountains of fan fiction wherein they actually did - in all sorts of creative ways), and cheered when they finally did get together.
And then the show tanked.
Not right away. And not always in the same way. Sure, Moonlighting imploded pretty spectacularly almost immediately afterwards. New Girl promptly pulled the plug on the relationship. The X-Filesdefaulted to kidnapping by mysterious bright light. But Cheers went on, even without Diane. Friendstried all the other possible romantic combinations at its disposal. Robin and Ted and Barney spun in endless circles around each other until the bitter end, and Scandal is still offering a new jaw-dropping revelation before each commercial break, just like clockwork.
But no one will argue that something isn't missing.
Be it the sexual tension, the nail-biting anticipation, or simply the thrill of the unknown versus the predictability of the same-old/same-old, very few shows, sitcoms or dramas, have managed to turn the Will They or Won't They? into They Did! (followed by They Did, Again!) without fundamentally altering the nature of their story.
So what's one show that's (so far; knock wood) managed to pull the transition off seamlessly?
Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
Yes, that sitcom about the cops. Headlined by Andy Samberg. And Andre Braugher (previously not exactly known for bringing the funny from inside Homicide's infamous Box). The show that FOX first stuck into their Sunday night Animation Domination, where it fit in awkwardly at best, despite sometimes seeming like a live-action cartoon, then rewarded their Golden Globe winning and Emmy nominated program with a let’s-see-if-the-fans-can-find-it move to Tuesday night.
When Brooklyn Nine-Nine premiered, it was a workplace ensemble comedy, though Jake (played by Samberg) and Amy (Melissa Fumero) were set up as a potential couple from the start. As early as the first episode, Jake was laying out a bet that, if lost, meant Amy had to go on a date with him. Throughout Season One, Amy went on dates – with other men, which Jake teased her about, then insisted that he truly did respect her as a colleague and a friend. Jake also went on dates, which, fair is fair, Amy teased him about. Thankfully, nobody was pining for anyone else, but there was something akin to flirtation in the air (even if it did involve playful murder reenactments).
Season One ended with Jake, about to go undercover for six months, telling Amy that if she weren't steadily dating someone and he wasn't about to change his name and pretend to be a gangster, he'd want the two of them to give romance a shot.
In Season Two, Jake returns, and, as Amy is still in her relationship, insists that his previous confession was a spur of the moment thing, he isn't really interested. By the end of Season Two, they're kissing.
The most recent season, Season Three, picked up with Jake and Amy trying to figure out where they stand. Within a few episodes they were dating exclusively and everyone in the squad knew about it.
And then... nothing horrible happened.
The show didn't break stride, skip a beat or change in any essential way.
And it was fantastic.
Halfway through the season, Fumero became more and more visibly pregnant (despite the large purses, plants, desks, parkas, and ultimately hazmat suit the show kept putting her behind). This is another TV Danger Zone. Often, an actresses’ pregnancy forces the show to write it in, which means rushing the nascent couple through key stages of a relationship, culminating with an extraneous baby that hangs around for a few episodes (most likely for a dramatic/side-splitting delivery), then more or less disappears.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine was wise to ignore the pregnancy altogether.
But that wasn't the only thing it did right.
The most important decision made by the show was not to change what Brooklyn Nine-Nine was chiefly about. It's a sitcom, yes, but one with some surprisingly intricate mysteries to solve, and plot twists that wouldn't be out of place on Law & Order. In other words, it's a show about the police and their work, not the police and their personal lives. Sure, we've met the Captain's husband, Kevin, and been privy to their issues when forced to live apart. We've seen a few of Rosa's boyfriends, and Season Three's main mystery had to do with who in the FBI was out to frame the latest one. We know Terry has twin girls (the adorably named Cagney and Lacey) and his wife just gave birth to a third daughter. Charles dated a woman the squad thought was thief, Gina performs with a dance troupe, and Hitchcock and Scully are weirdly co-dependent. But that's all just color for the main plot (as good of a place as any to also note that Brooklyn Nine-Nine has quietly assembled arguably the most racially, ethnically and gender diverse cast on network television, without anyone feeling like a token). Amy and Jake's relationship effortlessly slipped in the same way. As just another detail to the front-burner story and never - this is key - the story itself.
TV has an unfortunate tendency to make a visible character trait like BLACK! LATINO! GAY! WOMAN! become the only - or de facto most important - character trait. A romantic relationship frequently falls into the same boat. Whom someone is dating becomes the most important thing about them. That may be true about some people in real life. But they aren't particularly interesting people.
And they don't make for particularly interesting characters. Brooklyn Nine-Nine neatly side-stepped making the show all about the relationship by making it so that the characters themselves are not all about the relationship. They have other things going on in their lives, including their friends, their hobbies, their neuroses (everybody has some at the 99!), and their work, which is where they spend the bulk of their time (at least, as far as we can see them). They Did! never capsized the show, becauseWill They or Won't They? was never a linchpin of the narrative. It could easily be removed without causing any of the other pieces to topple.
A lesson other shows – and some aforementioned people - would do well to emulate.
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