12-03-2016, 03:52 PM
Can I just add a small corollary to the above, with a minor disagreement.
There are, I think, circumstances under which a couple can continue to be interesting after the actual relationship is established. But it requires that a certain amount of their focus and drive be external to the couple. I'm thinking primarily of crime investigation duos, because that's my genre of choice, generally. A film, or a book, has a finite arc, mostly (unless someone is going franchise crazy from the off) so the pacing is all towards a 'happy ending'. A show spreads it out, sometimes way too long, and often fails to please a majority of the audience doing so.
Characters who have the Relationship as their sole goal/reason for existence can't be interesting past that one point, usually because they aren't written with any other nuance. Put it against a backdrop of something bigger than they are, and it can be ongoing. It needs, though, to be about discovering facets, learning to be a couple, not a solo act. And this does not have to go straight to marriage/babies. Or manufactured melodrama.
There are, I think, circumstances under which a couple can continue to be interesting after the actual relationship is established. But it requires that a certain amount of their focus and drive be external to the couple. I'm thinking primarily of crime investigation duos, because that's my genre of choice, generally. A film, or a book, has a finite arc, mostly (unless someone is going franchise crazy from the off) so the pacing is all towards a 'happy ending'. A show spreads it out, sometimes way too long, and often fails to please a majority of the audience doing so.
Characters who have the Relationship as their sole goal/reason for existence can't be interesting past that one point, usually because they aren't written with any other nuance. Put it against a backdrop of something bigger than they are, and it can be ongoing. It needs, though, to be about discovering facets, learning to be a couple, not a solo act. And this does not have to go straight to marriage/babies. Or manufactured melodrama.