[Editor’s note: This story contains spoilers for the ending of “Starstruck” Season 3.]
Time was that in a romantic comedy, the leads always ended up together.
That’s changed over time as audience and narrative priorities shift, and as television dove deeper into the rom-com game along with film, finding ways to unite, separate, and permute every pairing while filling out hours and hours of story. A lot of sitcoms spin that into classic TV romance; Ross and Rachel, Cory and Topanga, Jess and Nick. In recent years, the trend has skewed toward getting a couple together and keeping them together; Jake and Amy, David and Patrick, Janine and Gregory.
And then there is the Secret Third Thing, the rare and difficult move where a show pairs its lead character or characters off with someone who wasn’t the original plan. Sometimes there are outside factors (“Cheers” comes to mind), while other times it’s simply a more desirable story development.
Time was that in a romantic comedy, the leads always ended up together.
That’s changed over time as audience and narrative priorities shift, and as television dove deeper into the rom-com game along with film, finding ways to unite, separate, and permute every pairing while filling out hours and hours of story. A lot of sitcoms spin that into classic TV romance; Ross and Rachel, Cory and Topanga, Jess and Nick. In recent years, the trend has skewed toward getting a couple together and keeping them together; Jake and Amy, David and Patrick, Janine and Gregory.
And then there is the Secret Third Thing, the rare and difficult move where a show pairs its lead character or characters off with someone who wasn’t the original plan. Sometimes there are outside factors (“Cheers” comes to mind), while other times it’s simply a more desirable story development.
- 10/2/2023
- by Proma Khosla and Ben Travers
- Indiewire
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