Poll: TV’s best male-female platonic partnerships

This week’s poll focuses on platonic, male-female friendships on TV in the past decade. While I wish I could make a case for a purely, 100% platonic, male-female relationship, TV being what it is can’t allow that. So this will focus on relationships that are at least 90% (or above) platonic.

What do I mean by platonic? I mean a relationship that started out as friends, didn’t have any romantic intentions in the script (outside the humorous), and is mostly friend-based (outside the obligatory one episode a year that puts the couple in the pressure cooker).

I’m expanding it to the past decade because I blatantly want to include Buffy‘s Willow and Xander and the X-Files. And most contemporary shows have the male-female pairing with the not-so-covert possibility of romance in the background (which is why I’m on the fence about Haven/The Mentalist). Although Keith rejected my Will-Sue Glee pairing, Brett didn’t vote for iCarly!, and two shows with platonic yet one-sided crush relationships made the list, below find a result of what the bullpen thought up.

If you feel Will-Sue (or others) should make the list, type it below! (Admittedly, we could just create a poll focusing on awesome female villains or kickbutt nemeses pairings).

Carla: Without a doubt, Sheldon and Penny on The Big Bang Theory. They are the purely platonic and play off each other well. They are not only good friends, but an odd pairing and very funny.

Julia: OOOH. OOH. Wallace and Veronica. From Veronica Mars.

Jen: Marshall and Mary on In Plain Sight. Hands down.

Carla: I’m not sure Marshall and Mary count as platonic, since Marshall is in love with her. Didn’t Xander and Willow date for a while? I’ve only seen the first three seasons, but I thought they did get together.

Jen: Actually, they hid some kissing, but when they got caught, that was pretty much it, I think.

Keith:  They “dated” pre-series premiere (a little kids), so I’d say that makes up the 10% non-platonic for the poll.

Tara:  I’m voting for Donald Trump and his hair. Obviously, they get along well. I hear her name is Hester.

Ruby:  Jack and Chloe developed a really awesome, completely platonic friendship over seasons 3-8 of 24. In fact, the most moving part of the series finale was Jack saying goodbye to Chloe.

Chuck: What about Clark and Chloe on Smallville?  Yeah, they’ve had some romantic yearnings, but they have always had each others’ backs.

Michael: I second Jen’s “Marshall and Mary on In Plain Sight. Hands down.” The only thing I would add would be “Theirs is the way it should be done.”

Deb:  From the moment Veronica rescued Wallace from the flagpole, he was a devoted friend, for better or for worse.

Bob: Peggy and Don from Mad Men is my favorite relationship on TV right now. She truly seems like one of the only people that Don is comfortable around.

Ruby: Oh, I have to add one more platonic friendship — Wilhelmina Slater and Marc St. James from Ugly Betty. It’s a delightful moment when Wili makes him an editor after realizing he is the most important guy in her life.

Brett: If we’re going into the recent past, I would also throw Mal and Zoe (Firefly) in the mix. And they are a very good example of how that relationship can work. Unwavering loyalty, and genuine affection, with not even a hint of the will they/won’t they shenanigans.

Carissa:  I second Peggy and Don. I don’t think they will ever “go there” with them, and it makes their relationship so much more interesting. I can’t support Marshall and Mary. Marshall wants Mary — bad. That has never been a secret, and because of that it’s more unrequited love, to me.

As you can tell we had A LOT to say on the topic.  What about you?

Clacked by An Nicholson
on Oct 13, 2010 @ 15:00 EST5EDT