Seriously. House used to be a medical show. By the end of season two, they quit writing that stuff for the "House flirts with..." plotline. Moonlighting--a former mystery show. Flipping through for additional evidence, UGH, saw "the Nanny,"--which still fits my thesis. Friends. Cheers. Two and a Half Men. WTF?!?! It's not like writers are so expensive to pay to think originally. There are thousands of them out there to try out if the old ones aren't doing solid, new stuff! I'm not some asexual misanthrope, but why, why, why can't there be a single long haul show that avoids the trite marrying off of the single characters?

And while I'm at it, why does everyone in sitcoms eventually seem to become friends, even if their original stock characters loathe each other? MASH. Wings. Cheers (again). AAIIGH!

I can think of one (excellent) show off the top of my head that didn't fall into that. The Pretender. There was a brief romance between Ms Parker and Tommy, but they killed Tommy off when Parker threatened to leave the Centre. I think he was in all of 4 episodes. Jared had a brief romance that lasted 2 episodes I believe, and there was some weird sham-romance stuff going on with a few other secondary Centre characters. But for the most part, the show stuck to its premise of he-runs and helps people, they-chase for all 4 seasons.

I don't watch a lot of TV, so I can't really think of any others. I guess there hasn't been a whole lot of romance in the Heroes I've watched so far. I think I just must gravitate towards shows where the characters are too busy trying to figure out who they are and their place in the world to be bothered to fall in love...

My wife would probably smack me for that comment...