Tuesdays are Top 10 Tuesdays where I count down a topic in the TV realm. This week is Top 10 TV Couples!
Close Calls
Ross & Rachel - Friends
Leslie & Ben - Parks and Recreation
Cam & Mitch - Modern Family
I love the power couple that makes up the President and First Lady on The West Wing. As played by Martin Sheen and Stockard Channing, the Bartlets managed to have a pretty equal marriage even when one of them was President of the United States. They kept each other grounded. The series could have done a show entirely about them and it would also have been a good show.
9. April & Andy - Parks and Recreation
Leslie and Ben were a great couple and close to making this list but the best couple on Parks and Recreation was April and Andy. She was the princess of darkness and pessimism. He was the overgrown man child who loved everything and everyone. Yet their chemistry on screen was electric as they did exactly what they wanted regardless of what others thought.
8. Randall & Beth - This is Us
There are many things to love about the best couple on This is Us. They are a very modern couple in some ways with their give and take. But at the same time, Beth is almost always right. She is almost always the calm, cool and collected one and that's just the type of person the high strung Randall needs.
7. Samantha & Darrin - Bewitched
I've already written a lot about Samantha and Darrin while doing the Bewitched episode guide on Thursdays. But there's no question they had such a warm and interesting marriage (especially in the Dick York years). I loved that they were both in it for love, not for magic, and the show made that clear time and time again.
Of course the Ross and Rachel story spanned the entire ten year run of Friends and was responsible for some of the best moments. But the better couple on Friends? That was Monica and Chandler. They were friends who ended up together in the most surprising of ways and yet it proved to be a surprisingly perfect pairing as the stable couple who actually were made for each other.
5. Jim & Pam - The Office
Jim and Pam were the best example of a couple that was at their best before they ever got together. Of course them being together was the endgame everyone wanted but the most interesting episodes with the two of them were when there was unrequited love and ever-so-slight hints that perhaps things could work out between the two of them.
4. Lucy & Ricky - I Love Lucy
TV's first classic couple paved the way for so many others. While the story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz is tinged with sadness throughout, the story of Lucy and Ricky is a delightful marriage forever in the 50s as a Cuban bandleader and his scatterbrained red-headed wife. As Desi famously said, I Love Lucy was never just a title.
3. Paul & Jamie - Mad About You
Mad About You was an uneven show, but it always worked best when it centered on the two main characters. Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt both played neurotic characters but they had unmistakable chemistry. If the series had focused exclusively on them and less on the side characters, it might have been one of the best shows ever created.
2. Rob & Laura - The Dick Van Dyke Show
Rob and Laura were a sophisticated couple that were both ahead of their time and emblematic of their time, if that makes any sense. They were ahead of their time in that it wasn't some 50s version of a TV couple with all the stereotypes involved. Yet they were also so identifiable with the era the show aired and the Kennedy "Camelot" era. The pure chemistry between Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore makes their relationship still sizzle more than half a century later.
The best TV couple is also perhaps the most authentic one we've ever seen on the small screen. As Coach Eric Taylor and his school counselor turned principal wife Tami, Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton had such a natural relationship. They had stories not based on premise but based on relationships. Their conversations were sweet and funny at times but above all, realistic. And they were still a power couple, however unassuming they might have appeared. Friday Night Lights is a great show in so many ways, but the relationship between these two is the best part of it.
Tomorrow: A One Season Wonder look at Delta House!
Next Tuesday: Top 10 TV Hangout Spots!
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