Top 5: Couples I Just Don't Care About

Sorry folk, I have to be true to my nature.  A haters gotta hate.

There are TV couples that just bore the every living shite out of me.  I don't actively rail against them (most of the time), I just usually go get a snack when they appear.  In the worst cases a tiresome couple can lead me to go get a snack permanently.  

Buffy and Spike, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
This just never made one damn bit of sense to me.  Just didn't.  Riley was wrong for Buffy and Angel had a whole new life (and show, and love interest) in LA, so romantic options were limited for our dear slayer, but Spike!  I will never stop feeling like the writers/producers wanted to keep Spike (because he was a really good character) but they didn't quite know how so they decided to hook him up with Buffy.  On a show that was exceptional for organic character development this storyline seemed immensely forced and contrived, therefore (to me) deeply uninteresting.  There were genuinely compelling moments between Spike and Buffy, but those moments didn't add up to a couple you rooted either for or against.

Chuck and Sarah, Chuck
I admit, I kind of stopped watching Chuck because of Chuck and Sarah's relationship.  Mostly because the show became ABOUT their relationship, and I just couldn't care less.  Sarah is awful and Chuck could do so much better.  Sarah is really hot and quite adept at kick-and-kill, but she sleeps with any eligible male partner who crosses her path, and is continually lecturing others to behave in ways she refuses to do so herself.  Furthermore, because essentially Chuck asserts his concept of Sarah as her actual character, there is a deep disconnect for the viewer between what we see and what the male lead says, making it really hard to care.  By the end of S3 (where I left off watching) Chuck's expeditions into adulthood, his halting but ever hopeful steps towards self-respect, definition of purpose and acceptance of responsibility, became a reductive get-and-keep-the-girl image of maturity, a disappointing case of a show being less than the sum of it's parts by focusing far too heavily on the weakest elements.  (And then there's the whole, this-is-my-tax-dollars-at-work issue...)

Ted and the Mother, How I Met Your Mother
I don't know that I've ever cared too much who The Mother actually is, despite that being the title of the show.  I really like the failed relationships and lessons learned from those that have occupied Ted on his way to meeting his future wife, and I do want to know her name, but the real draw of the show for me is the friendship between the 5 principle characters.  I like the way Marshall, Lily, Barney, Robin and Ted both mock and support each other, how they entertain themselves with silly games, how they know when to correct and when to congratulate, when to apologize and when to ask for an apology.  It's wonderful to see friendships on TV that seem natural, sincere, and well-rounded.  And at some point, I'll find out who Ted marries, cool with me, but not at all keeping me up at night.

Kate and Neal, White Collar
Another case where the very existence of this couple predicates the premise of the show (Neal escapes from prison, and must be recaptured by the guy who put him there, FBI Special Agent Peter Burke, because Kate dumps him) but aside from acting as a springboard, Neal and Kate have little to no value.  The fact that Kate is an absence rather than a presence on the show doesn't help captivate the audience at all, but in the episode where we get to see Kate and Neal fall in love you seriously want to take a nap.  Add to this that Alexandra Daddario, the miscast woman who plays Kate, just cannot keep pace with Mathew Bomer quick, clever, but ultimately yearning Neal.  Sorry, she's just not a terribly good actress.  But she's very pretty.  And essentially, that's how you end up feeling about Neal and Kate: they are an aesthetically pleasing couple without much else to recommend them.  Luckily everything else on the show is fun and engaging, so it's easy to ignore the ho-hum relationship that started the whole thing.

Deb and Lundy, Dexter
The most interesting thing this couple did was get shot, him fatally.  Harsh? Yes. But true.  Damaged, stubborn, and relentlessly loving Deb is without a doubt the emotional core of Dexter (and Dexter).  A bit hard to take in S1, Deb grows into not a nagging-voice-of-reason to act as an easy foil to Dexter's detached and murderous nature, but rather an emotionally complex and thoughtfully principled companion to and reflection of her brother.  A great deal of this development happens within the context of her various romantic relationships, but it was hard to pay attention to all this during S2 because her love interest, FBI Special Agent Frank Lundy (I really like writing out whole title for these dudes) was unfortunately dull.  Lundy was a bit too smart by ordinary, too Everyman, not quite the Sherlock Holmes we need to be chasing Dex and to be inspiring such love and loyalty from Deb.  Safe, kind, and dedicated to his job, Lundy just didn't have that spark of personality against which Deb shines all the brighter.  He was her Riley (the good guy she needed to fill the time while she healed from heartbreak): necessary but expendable.

The TV Girl