The End of TV Soul Mates?

A couple of months ago when I put together my Top Ten Cases video of my favorite TV kisses, I made an interesting observation: Over the past decade or so, we haven't really followed a relationship to the point that the first kiss is a genuinely monumental moment (I'm excluding Smallville, where the characters' histories are already established).

For example, when you say "Beverly Hills: 90210" you probably think of Dylan and Brenda. Or Dylan and Kelly. Or even Brandon and Kelly. Each relationship was built up, sustained for a number of years, and lingered long after they had ended. Compare that to today's 90210, where in just three seasons Silver has had a relationship (to varying degrees) with Dixon, Ethan, Teddy, and Navid. That's four lead male characters in two and a half seasons.

So what's different? For one, I think there's a lack of restraint. On The Office (the closest example of modern soul mate TV), Jim and Pam didn't get together until the end of the third season. Can you imagine, say, The Vampire Diaries waiting that long to bring Elena and Stefan together? Admittedly, we're dealing with different genres, but television writers seem to have a difficult time building a romance without bringing the characters together almost immediately. It's not impossible, Lost did a fantastic job of that with the Kate/Jack/Sawyer love triangle. No matter which character she ultimately ended up with, it was going to be a moment years in the making.

Another problem is the general laziness of creating conflict because it's harder to make happy characters interesting. I actually commend The Office for pairing up Jim and Pam and never having them break up. The writers just needed to tweak their formula in order to keep them entertaining (while a lot of people have objected, I actually enjoy them quite a bit). 90210 is notorious for this. Between Annie/Ethan, Naomi/Ethan, Annie/Liam, Naomi/Liam, Silver/Dixon, Dixon/Ivy, Silver/Teddy, Ade/Teddy, Silver/Navid, Ade/Navid, has ANY relationship lasted more than an entire season? I mean hell, even the teacher has hooked up with three different guardians to three different students.

And finally, there's also this general sense of certain relationships feeling unimportant. Friends did a tremendous job of making Ross and Rachel significant. Almost everybody recognizes that as THE relationship of that show, despite the fact that Chandler and Monica were together for far more of the series' duration. Likewise, you have Jim and Pam from The Office. Jack and Kate and Sawyer and Kate from Lost. Seth and Summer from The O.C.

But overall, when was the last time two characters got together, and it felt like something you were REALLY waiting for?