MaDD Blogger

Just do it!!!!

I wanted to do a less serious post before I debut my newest entry which I promise will be a doozey. I've been watching the roll out of TV's fall lineup and I always see one or two shows about relationships that are never realized. I call this "Moonlighting Syndrome" wherein the two main characters share an obvious attraction for each other but for the sake of drama and creating a buzz around the show they tease the audience with the thought of the two actually "doing it" and then when they finally decide to let the two get it on. The show runs out of steam, the ratings drop, and the producers usually will do something really stupid and break the two up again to try to return things back to the "Good 'ole days" when everything was right with the world and then the show gets canceled. I site former fan favorites like ABC's Moonlighting and Anything But Love and Fox's Ned and Stacey as just a few examples.

Moonlighting NEVER recovered after Maddie and David did the deed yet most fans of the show thought the two should definitely be together, but when it happened in what was to be my favorite episode of the series it was all downhill from there. The fighting continued, they broke up and she started seeing someone else, Maddie got pregnant and wasn't sure who the father was and then they found out that it wasn't David's kid which felt like a real kick in the balls to me and other fans of the show. I just stopped watching after that.

Let's not forget the infamous will they or won't they that was Mulder and Scully's relationship on the X-Files. Chris Carter purposely kept the two leads apart although it has been a long standing rumor that David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson hooked up for a brief period during the very first season in Vancouver. It fizzled out and they remained cool, the show caught on and became a hit.

One of my absolute favorites for the last few years has been the WB's Smallville and it's handling of the relationship between Clark Kent and Lana Lang. Fans of the series love Lana and want her and Clark to do the deed but anyone remotely familiar with the canon of Superman knows that Clark leaves Smallville, goes to Metropolis, and marries Lois Lane but let's examine that for a moment. Of all the stories I've read with Lois I've never really got the impression that she was a virgin when she and 'ole Supes finally got together. They have even flirted with her dating Lex Luther and even being engaged to him although the comics always played it as one sided. Lex wanted Lois literally like a possession and while she would go out with him or have dinner there was definitely no sex involved which angered Lex and caused him to go out of his way to possess her. In the comics he even went so far as to infect her mother with a rare disease and then had his staff come up with a cure that only he could provide which had to be taken once a week.

Of course he was found out eventually but again I never got the impression that Lois had never known a man before Clark. I see no reason that Lana and Clark cannot have an intimate relationship which will fizzle out due in no small part to Clark finally accepting who he is and the mandate that Jor-El has laid out to him. He must leave Smallville and become Superman and Lana simply cannot be a part of that. That doesn't spit in the face of the Superman mythos as it has been established for decades that Lana Lang was Clark's lost love, the one that got away. So Clark could have a real "adult" relationship with Lana but with the mantle of Superman hanging over his head he accepts his destiny and goes forward to Metropolis and Lois. The fans get what they want and Superman actually becomes more human in the eyes of purists who often complain that he is written as a stiff goody-goody.

I was recently at some fan forums and the boards were all abuzz because on the new BattleStar Galactica Apollo and Starbuck finally got it on. I almost vomited when I wrote that sentence because anyone who was a fan of the old "campy" version of BattleStar knows that Apollo and Starbuck are homeboys. They drink booze,play cards, and chase women together. They don't fall into eachothers arms and stick their tongues down eachothers throats. Of course now that Starbuck no longer has a penis I guess it's okay and the show itself is an improvement in almost all respects but there is just something special about the original. The new He-man cartoon was "better" but it wasn't the He-man that I grew up watching and the new Transformers cartoons sucked much ass but the most obvious point I can make is that if the original sucked so bad nobody would have been inspired to try and remake it. You haven't heard of a remake to Supertrain being greenlit now have you? Why don't they just make a new version of the A-Team, make Hannibal a girl and have her and B.A. explore their forbidden interacial love in the back of his van? I love it when a plan cums together!

Since we know that a show will likely go downhill after it's stars sleep together perhaps the smarter thing to do is take the option off the table. Make the two leads a couple from day one and create the show around that. An example would be that you could make Mulder and Scully a couple right out of the box and just show that when they go to work they are professional enough to work together without the goo-goo eyes. Don't focus on the relationship too much as the show is about the strange cases that make up the X-files and not about what is going on in the bedroom. Once you take it off the table it's no longer an issue and the writers can focus on the main storyline of the show. It's just a thought but I think it could work.