On Valentine’s Day of all days, it’s important to remember that romance isn’t always sweet. Sometimes it’s forced and sad and just plain creepy. Here are my choices for the worst TV couples right now.
10. Mindy & Danny (The Mindy Project)
A large amount of episodes seem to revolve around them fundamentally not working and yet they’ve just kept letting things slide and now we’re stuck watching him constantly trying to convince her to put her career on hold to have another baby.
9. Noah & Alison (The Affair)
When will they put each other (and the viewers) out of their misery and just go their separate ways? They do not like being together.
8. Schmidt & Cece (New Girl)
They have their cute moments, but the overall writing of this courtship has been clunky to say the least. When they became engaged, it felt less like Schmidt stepping up to the plate and maturing and more like Cece letting go of her standards.
7. Liz & Tom (The Blacklist)
Tom’s redemption arc was just barely effective enough for me to be on board with them casually sleeping together, but now he’s lobbying hard for getting married and raising a baby together and that’s a bridge too far.
6. Sheldon & Amy (The Big Bang Theory)
This is a prime example of the unfortunate sitcom idea that everything in a relationship is fine as long as the woman sasses back sometimes.
5. Gloria & Jay (Modern Family)
See above, but add racism to it.
4. Rayna & Deacon (Nashville)
Deacon’s jealous, controlling nature is so disgusting that he said Rayna’s label being in jeopardy was a good thing as long as it meant not spending more time around a guy she has no interest in anyway. Dude.
3. Penny & Leonard (The Big Bang Theory)
They don’t have anything in common or seem like they like each other and yet they power through.
2. Castle & Beckett (Castle)
The whole show is based around him acting childish and getting in the way of her job and her finding it endlessly endearing.
1. Howard & Bernadette (The Big Bang Theory)
Howard and Bernadette are so retrograde they’d be at home on a 1950s sitcom if it weren’t for the fact that Howard is playing video games, rather than drinking beer with the boys, when they exchange eye-rolling dialogue about when he’s going to do the dishes.
