Rating the TV Romance, Part 5: Castle and Beckett

O.k., we are now at the final entry of my "Rating the TV Romance" series of blog posts.  Castle (2009 - present) is actually the show that prompted me to start this entire series of posts to begin with - specifically the finale of season 4, which just aired in May.  It was an episode that I kinda loved immensely but also felt conflicted about.  My brain was like "Wellll ..." but my heart was like "WOOT!!" 

Rating the TV Romance, Part 4: Chuck and Sarah

When I was re-watching a few episodes of Alias for my last "Rating the TV Romance" post, I re-watched an episode called "A Higher Echelon", the second ep in a 2-ep arc in which Marshall Flinkman (nerdy SD-6 spy gadget inventor extraordinaire) gets to go on his first mission (with Sydney of course).  Towards the end of the episode, Sydney is in the middle of saving him after he has been kidnapped by bad guys, and after she saves him, he manages to bust out a moment where he returns the favor using sheer nerdy ingenuity (i.e. one of his inventions) - a secret parachute that can be hidden in the lining of a jacket.  Syd and Marshall are stuck in a tall building with no way out, so the parachute comes in very handy at that moment.  The moment when Marshall suddenly turns from nerd to bad-ass spy, at least for that short minute in time, is when he straps Syd onto him so they can jump out a window together, and follows this up with: "My name is Marshall J. Flinkman, and I'm here to rescue you!!"

Rating the TV Romance, Part 3: Syd and Vaughn

When Alias first started airing in late 2001, I initially had no desire or intent to watch it because it looked like it would be cheesy and I've never been into the spy genre.  James Bond and that type of stuff was never my thing.  However, a friend of mine was super into it and relentlessly begged me to watch, so I finally reluctantly agreed to check it out.  I was hooked like crack pretty much within the first 2 minutes.  Suddenly I realized that I actually am into the spy genre, provided that it involves the girl getting to do all the bad-ass stuff for a change.  I was used to the tradition of chicks being used mainly as eye candy in spy stories.  But then Alias came along and flipped that 180 degrees, and I was all for it.  And this show had the added benefit of one of my favorite things: a "will-they-won't-they" couple in Sydney and Vaughn - Sydney Bristow is a double agent for a rogue organization called SD-6 and the CIA, and Michael Vaughn is her CIA handler.  Vaughn doesn't show up until the last few scenes of the pilot episode, but the chemistry is there pretty much right away.

Rating the TV Romance, Part 2: Luke and Lorelai

Alright peeps, next up in my "Rating the TV Romance" list, we have Luke and Lorelai from Gilmore Girls (2000 - 2007).  O.k. I know that pic above is not Lorelai and Luke, it's Lorelai and Rory.  But I wanted to start off with the main logo for the show, and I think Rory should get a shout-out there, shouldn't she?  Anyway, for reference, here are the two blog posts that led into this:

Confessions of a Former Soap-aholic
Rating the TV Romance, Part 1: Felicity and Ben

Rating the TV Romance, Part 1: Felicity & Ben

So, as I mentioned in my previous blog post, a recent season finale of one of my TV shows has prompted me to do a list and rating of some classic TV romances (my faves), to figure out what made them enjoyable, and see how they stack up against each other.  I'll get to the TV show that prompted this in the final blog post.  But for now here's the categories that I think I'll use for my ratings:

• The "Danger" Factor - I mentioned in my "Confessions of a Former Soap-aholic" post that if the t.v. show contains a "danger" element for the couple in question, my level of interest instantly shoots up by several notches, heh.  If that sounds ridiculous, it's because it IS ridiculous, but what can I say, I can't help it.  It's something I realized in my soap-obsession days as a kid.  :-P  Anyway the "danger" factor is not essential, but if it's there, it usually brings my interest level up even higher than it would be otherwise, simply because it adds extra drama (or melodrama and angst, ha) to the mix.
• General "Soapy-ness" Factor - Since the post that started this revolved around my former love of soaps, I'm throwing this in there too.  I'm putting it in here to see if the "soap" factor increases or decreases my enjoyment of the show and the romance storyline.  I consider the "danger" factor to actually be an important part of the "soap" factor, and I think it's the soapy element that reels me in the most, by far.  But I want to see if any other soapy elements also have any effect.
• Overall Rating of Show Itself - How good is the show as a whole?
• Rating of First "Couple Getting Together" Scene - It's hard to title this one ... but by this I just mean the scene where the couple first get together, which usually translates to a kiss ... a make-out, sometimes even fake simulated t.v. sex, that type of thing.  It's usually the scene the entire audience has been waiting for, for however many episodes or seasons they've decided to drag out the "will-they-won't-they" dance.
• Rating of First Sexy Times Scene - Ha I know this sounds pervy, but I'm not rating this on like, a porn level.  :-P  Many t.v. shows don't even show much of anything in this scene anyway, they only show you the "hey it's about to happen!" and/or the "hey it just happened!" moments.  But I'm including it because it's usually an important milestone for the progression of the plot.  And it doesn't always happen in the same scene as the first "couple gets together" moment, so that's why I gave it a separate section.
• Overall Rating of the Romance - When you take the entire course of the t.v. series and the fake t.v. relationship into account, how good was it?

Confessions of a Former Soap-aholic

When I was a little kid, my brother and I were babysat regularly by a teenager who lived on our street named Cheryl.  Cheryl was actually only about 5 years older than me, but when you're 10 and she's 15 it's a pretty decent difference in maturity level.  Between Cheryl and her older sister Connie, their family provided babysitting duties for our family for quite a large chunk of my childhood.  My parents divorced when I was 7, forcing my mom into the undesirable territory of single mom-hood, and the necessity of good after school babysitter became quite apparent by that point.  Cheryl filled the role quite nicely and dutifully.

When I was 10, I started to weasel my way into watching daytime soaps with Cheryl, her mom, and sometimes our other neighbor friend, at Cheryl's family's house.  Before that I had never been allowed to watch soaps at all, and had always been pushed out of the room whenever anyone (Cheryl or otherwise) had them on the t.v.  But I guess by the time I was 10, they started to get sick of telling me "no" all the time when I would beg and beg them, and they eventually kinda gave in and let me start hanging out while they were watching them.  Specifically the two soaps they were into were General Hospital and Days of Our Lives.  I never got super into General Hospital, but Days of Our Lives quickly became a daily obsession for me.  That may have had to do with the fact that it was on later than most of the others: 3pm.  I think the key was that it may have been on just late enough that I was able to regularly catch some of it when I would get home from school.  Though I honestly don't recall if my regular soap watching started during the school year or the summertime.