Supporting characters romances.

[Nr1Humanoid]

Why are they always done so much better than the main character ones?

Phoebe and Mike in Friends.

Niles and CC in the Nanny.

Frasier and Lillith in Frasier.

Nellie and Percival in Little House on the Prairie.

Niles and Daphne in Frasier.

The list is endless.

[DiBiase is Good]

Tim and Dawn in The Office.

[bibboid]

Alice and Sam the butcher in The Brady Bunch

[hassanchop]

Keith and Mora in Gundam 0083

Hanai and Mikoto in School Rumble

[G✇JI☈A]

Varrick and Zhu Li in “The Legend of Korra”

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

Antoine and Bunnie in the Archie Sonic comics were adorable together.

Oddly enough, their relationship started to blossom around the same time Sonic and Sally’s wasn’t being written all that great.

[karl100589]

Sept 12, 2020 19:27:34 GMT -5 DiBiase is Good said:

Tim and Dawn in The Office.

Yet strangely it's American equivalent (Jim and Pam) was less interesting then Michael/Holly, Kelly/Ryan or even Dwight/Angela

[FinalGwen]

Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing are kind of the ur-example of this. Claudio and Hero are the main characters that the plot revolves around, but they're so much blander than the wonderful sparkling wit and will-they-won't-they chemistry of the side couple.

[Mozenrath]

I think that because it's not meant to be the main attraction, there's less bullshit gimmicks. Side characters also are often less likely to be ingenues or the like, and are therefore more likely to be allowed a mature romantic outlook.

I guess Wolfgang Mittermeyer and his wife Evangelin in Legend of the Galactic Heroes would count, but outside of a flashback, they are married for the entire series and have a pretty rock-solid marriage.

[Scoops]

I agree with side characters not being the main attraction making them and their relationships more interesting. Since the series doesn’t revolve around them what we get to see of them is much more limited than the main character thus more appreciated and trimmed of the fat.

Also, adding to the list:

Hordak and Entrapta
Hyde and Jackie
Millie and Moxley
Skinner and Mrs. Krabapple

[camphor #BLM]

"Gilmore Girls" is full of this -- Jackson and Suki, Zack (Zach?) and Lane... hell, even Kirk and Lulu.

Even tho one of the whole points of that show is "the Gilmore mother and daughter are great and put-together and smart as a whip, but all thumbs when it comes to romance most of the time", I think what everyone else is saying is pretty much spot-on:

since the side-characters aren't needed to be the engines of drama for the show, they can have more stable / happy relationships a lot of the time.

[Citizen Snips Has Left]

Rose and Bernard on Lost

[wildojinx]

Muscle Man and Starla

[SmashTV]

Honourable mention to Andy and April in Parks and Recreation.

[Bub (BLM)]

Sept 13, 2020 13:13:15 GMT -5 SmashTV said:

Honourable mention to Andy and April in Parks and Recreation.

I was coming to say Andy and April. They were delightfully weird.

[Mighty Attack Tribble]

Sept 13, 2020 13:22:53 GMT -5 Bub (BLM) said:

Sept 13, 2020 13:13:15 GMT -5 SmashTV said:

Honourable mention to Andy and April in Parks and Recreation.

I was coming to say Andy and April. They were delightfully weird.

Having binged Parks and Rec over the lockdown, they wore my patience pretty thin by the end of the third season.

I enjoyed the development of Ron and Diane's relationship more.

[Shark]

Much less will they/won't they with their dynamic as well. Too often series worry about the change to the dynamic when those 2 main characters get together so they drag it out or have them break up and get back together for so long, it grows tiresome. You don't have to worry about that with side characters. Thus it feels like you're acting an actual, real, mature relationship.

[SmashTV]

Purely for comedy purposes, Maris and Niles on Frasier. Far from love’s young dream, and all the better for it.

[Deleted]

Willow/Oz and Willow/Tara were both more interesting than whatever vampire Buffy was banging at the time.

As a matter of fact, so was Xander/Anya, Xander/ Cordelia, Giles/That teacher that died, Spike/Drusilla, Spike/Harmony, etc.

[Dr. T is an alien]

Sept 14, 2020 12:36:44 GMT -5 @therealoblivion said:

Willow/Oz and Willow/Tara were both more interesting than whatever vampire Buffy was banging at the time.

As a matter of fact, so was Xander/Anya, Xander/ Cordelia, Giles/That teacher that died, Spike/Drusilla, Spike/Harmony, etc.

To be fair, Buffy’s vampire flings were more interesting than her relationship with an actual human (Riley, though I guess he was still sort of a human+ at the time, wasn’t he?).