I don’t care who you are, everyone has a secret obsession with at least one TV couple. Personally, I’m emotionally invested in seven TV couples in total, which means I’ve had my heart broken exactly seven times.
With every great couple our golden age of television produces – Jim and Pam, Ross and Rachel, Phil and Claire – we always find ourselves having to sift through all the duds just to get to them. Seriously, there are so many duds it’s not even funny.
To help sort the duds from the studs, we’ve put together a brief Who’s Who of relationship garbage:
‘Geordie Shore‘ – Vicky & Ricci
Oh my dear god, how is there no universal law that bans people with rhyming names from dating? Not only is it like nails on a chalkboard to have to say their names in succession, Vicky and Ricci were just the worst together. I still wake up in a cold sweat picturing Vicky yelling “Ricciiiii” after he’s once again out-douched himself in a creatively douchey way. No one with that much fake bronzer is going to be a perfect human being (except Snooki, she’s a godsend), but even still, Ricci pushed it to the absolute limit.
In saying that, I quite like Vicky, so I’m glad she went on to do bigger and better men.
‘Broad City‘ – Jeremy & Abbi
I will defend Abbi and Trey‘s relationship ’til the day I die. Jeremy and Abbi on the other hand, no thank you.
Watching Abbi having to put on this whole facade to try to impress Jeremy was excruciating, mainly because Jeremy was not worth impressing. Yes, he had an admittedly cool reno’d apartment, but he can take his pretentious corked craft beer and shove it. You’re not all that Jeremy, get outta here.
The upside is that their fleeting relationship fell apart after Jeremy pulled another pretentious move and cracked it at Abbi for buying the wrong sex toy. It’s the thought that counts Jeremy, you can shove that sex toy too while you’re at it.
‘Friends‘ – Joey & Rachel
With a team of around ten writers for each episode (I watched the documentary), how is it humanly possible that no one saw this colossal trainwreck coming?
Look, no one stans Friends as much as I do, but that whole Rachel/Joey storyline was out of order. I had a right mind to sue the entire Friends staff for emotional distress.
The only saving grace was that both Joey and Rachel realised they were such good friends that a romantic relationship was off the cards, but I mean, could they not have realised that before subjecting the audience to scenes of them kissing? Foul.
‘Seinfeld‘ – Jerry & Every Woman Ever
Jerry Seinfeld had a lot of flaws. I was trying to find a “but” in there somewhere but there really isn’t many redeemable qualities about Jerry – he’s self-involved, emotionless and seems to lack any motivation to maintain a substantial relationship.
It would be exhausting to have to go through his worst relationships as it was literally every single one of them, so I’ll just remind you of a few:
- The relationship where Jerry drugged his unassuming date so he could play with her toys
- The brief fling Jerry had with the woman he claimed had “man hands” and therefore was grossed out
- The few dates he went on with someone who was hot one day, uggo the next – at least according to Jerry himself
- The “relationship” with his cleaner which eventuated into Jerry paying her for sex rather than a clean apartment
‘The Office‘ – Kelly & Ryan
Kill me now.
The Office is arguably the most inconsistently great show to have ever graced our screens (forget season one, seven and eight), however even a quality series like this one had its fair share of painful couples. Enter Kelly and Ryan.
While Kelly was unbearably needy, Ryan was excruciatingly flakey and was incredibly disinterested in their entire romance. Together, they made one disgustingly hot mess that made it hard to look away.
To get the bad taste out of our mouth, here’s a wholesome photo of Jim and Pam being their adorable selves.
You can stream all of these shows, plus a gazillion more, on Stan now.
