TV has a rule I like to call “Chekhov’s Love Interest”. If a serious paramour pops up in season one, they’ll likely be seen again at the very end – most probably running to the airport for a last-minute declaration of love before the show gets cancelled. According to most TV writers, this emotional payoff is only satisfying if the die is cast early on. Ross needs to end up with Rachel. Niles with Daphne. Carrie with Big. Josh Lyman with Donna Moss. These couples are set up early. When Ross decided to “grab a spoon” and ask out Rachel in the first episode of Friends, you just knew he’d get said “spoon” by the finale.
These canonical couples are choice examples of an endemic trend in TV of relationship recycling. Crushes last years. Couples endlessly break up and get back together. No one ever moves on. Life is a game of romantic whack-a-mole, where exes pop up constantly for amorous plot development. Proof of this enduring trend is the Sex and the City revival And Just Like That..., which will – in its forthcoming second season – bring back Carrie’s ex Aidan, an archetypal “nice guy” on whom she notoriously cheated during the original series. For anyone not keeping count, this will mark their third go at a relationship. But while all of this is fictional on TV, I couldn’t help but wonder if these shows have had an indelible effect on our real love lives. Have these rehashed plots made us think that the only relationships worth pursuing are the ones we’ve already had?
