Rob Price
Science fiction and fantasy have been a part of television since nearly the beginning, expanding our imagination and taking us to new worlds and on new adventures. We have met new and exciting characters that connect with audiences in such a way that they feel like family. We watch these characters live their lives, we watch them fall in love and we watch their heartbreak. Sometimes two of these characters come together and the resulting storylines are like magic, a kind of television kismet. In honor of Valentines Day, this article will explore five such couples (or triples in one case). This is not intended to be a complete list, and there are many other couples out there that are just as worthy.
- WandaVision: Wanda Maximoff and Vision
After the events in the film Avengers: Endgame, Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) inadvertently takes over a town and alters its reality to match different shows from different decades, this was all done because she could not deal with losing Vision (Paul Bettany), the love of her life. A love so strong that she literally created a family, including her lost husband and two children. Her idyllic suburban life can’t last, especially with Agatha Harkness in the mix. Although her family were constructs of her immense powers, their loss at the end is profound, leading Wanda down a very dark path.
WandaVision premiered on January 15, 2021 and was well received by the critics. It is described as “Part loving homage to TV history, part off-kilter mystery, WandaVision is a wonderfully weird and strikingly bold step into the small screen for the MCU—and a perfect showcase for Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany.”. Wanda and Vision are two of my all time favorite characters in the Marvel Comic books as well as in the MCU and they are played by two of my favorite actors. Their love story in WandaVision is fun, funny and heartbreaking all at the same time.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Willow and Tara
In the fourth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the episode Hush Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan), a core member of the Scooby Gang, meets Tara Maclay (Amber Bensen) at a Wicca meeting and the two immediately hit it off. Over time, Tara not only becomes the love of Willow’s life, but the moral compass to the Scooby Gang as they battle all manners of evil. The drama heats up when Willow begins to abuse her magic nearly coming between the two, but ultimately, they come back together, only to have Tara struck down near the end of the sixth season. The loss catapults Willow into a very dark place where she becomes the “Big Bad” for the rest of the season.
The character of Tara was not intended to be a recurring character, but was only going to appear in a few episodes, helping Willow learn magic, but the pair’s chemistry was so strong that the writers expanded the characters arc and made the pair a couple. This was the first recurring depiction of a lesbian couple on prime-time network television. Tara wasn’t always met with favor from the fans. After Willow chooses Tara over her ex-boyfriend, Oz (Seth Green), many fans took to social media slinging homophobic slurs and calling Amber fat. This upset the actress who lurked on the message boards who eventually answered back with wit and grace. When Tara is killed, the studio also got some “hate mail” but Whedon contended that Tara’s death was needed to further Willows storyline. I loved both these characters and cried when Tara left. To this day, I still hold their relationship as a highpoint of TV.
- Dark Shadows: Barnabas, Josette, Angelique, Victoria
If you’re looking for romantic triangles or squares (depending on how you look at it), you need look no further than daytime soap operas. And surely there is no stranger and dangerous romantic triangle than that of Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) / Josette DuPres (Kathryn Leigh Scott)/ Angelique Bouchard (Lara Parker) / Victoria Winters (Alexandra Moltke) in the daytime soaper, Dark Shadow. In 1795, Impatient for the arrival of his fiancé, Josette, Barnabas Collins has a one-night stand with Josette’s handmaid, Angelique. But Angelique wants more than one night…she is in love with Barnabas. He spurns her, telling her he is in love with Josette and this angers Angelique who vows that Barnabas will be hers! Oh, did I forget to mention that Angelique is a witch? After pulling every spell out of the book to ensnare Barnabas and failing, she curses him and turns him into a creature of the night, a vampire! In the modern day (1966), Barnabas meets Josette’s doppelganger, Maggie Evans (in the 1991 Revival this was Victoria Winters (Joanna Going) because tv wasn’t advanced enough in the sixties to properly pull off the effects) and falls in love with her all over again. Top that General Hospital!
Dark Shadows started as a dream, quite literally. Creator Dan Curtis had a dream of a mysterious woman on a train. He pitched his “dream” idea to ABC who greenlit the series. At first, the show didn’t grab the audience and was about to be cancelled, when Curtis introduced the character of Barnabas Collins, a vampire. This reinvigorated the series which eventually won its late afternoon timeslot, becoming popular with teenagers rushing home from school to watch. The love between Josette, Angelique, Victoria/Maggie and Barnabas would be a cornerstone for many of the storylines and much of the drama that ensues in Collinsport, Maine. Triva: Jonathan Frid’s Barnabas Collins marked a major turn in Vampire storytelling by introducing the concept of the Vampire as a tragic character rather than just a monster as movies had portrayed Vampires to this point. Anne Rice cites Dark Shadows as a major influence for her own tales.
- Star Trek Discovery: Paul Stamets and Hugh Culber
It took 50 years for Star Trek to finally have a gay character as a lead and in the case of Discovery he is also part of a couple. Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) is a brilliant scientist and engineer who combines physics and mycology which allows the Discovery to travel through space faster than light or warp speed. He is partnered with Hugh Culber, the ship’s senior medical doctor. The two share a deep love which is put to the test on several occasions. Paul is often socially awkward where Hugh is empathetic and caring. Together, they complement each other and learn from one another. We get to see a relationship over time treated as any other relationship, which is how it should be.
L-R Wilson Cruz as Culber and Anthony Rapp as Stamets in Star Trek: Discovery, episode 6, season 5, streaming on Paramount+, 2023. Photo Credit: Michael Gibson/Paramount+
There are stories from the original Star Trek series in which Gene Roddenberry wanted to do an episode featuring a gay storyline, but he determined that the network would never allow it. Years later, he promised that there would be a gay character in The Next Generation, but that never came about. It is rumored that Rick Berman was incredibly homophobic and vetoed any attempts. There have been loose storylines that kind of address the issue, but it wasn’t until Discovery that we got a wholesome couple who have their ups and downs just like all the other characters within the Star Trek franchise. I loved both characters and was so happy to see them make it through the end of the series intact. Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz were also no strangers to each other before playing lovers, as they appeared on Broadway together in the musical Rent. Anthony originated the role of Mark Cohen and Wilson was one of the replacements for Angel Dumott Schunard.
1 Beauty and the Beast: Vincent and Catherine
After being mistaken for the wrong woman, attorney Catherine Chandler (Linda Hamilton), is attacked and left for dead. She is rescued and nursed back to health in a secret underground community. Her rescuer is Vincent (Ron Perlman) who is disfigured with the general appearance of a lion-man hybrid. Although his exterior can be scary, his soul is beautiful and full of love, kindness and poetry. Vincent not only saves her life, but in a way her soul as well. Their meeting affects her so deeply and her soul begins to match his. What they share is not physical, but a deeper emotional bond that has never been matched in television history (in my opinion). Her ordeal opens her eyes to the world and causes her to become more empathetic, seeing all the beauty that lies beneath the ugliness.
There is no competition on which television couple would be in the number one slot. The epic love between Catherine and Vincent exceeds the bounds of common love and goes into a much deeper place. Ron Perlman was perfect in the role of Vincent and allowed the actor to play something different from the normal “Bad Ass” biker characters he is often cast as. He shows sensitivity and wonderment as well as being strong and fierce. Beauty and the Beast premiered on September 25, 1987 and ran for three seasons. It was created by Ron Koslow and had George R.R. Martin as a writer and producer. Martin would later go on to write the book series that becomes Game of Thrones. This is my number one all-time favorite show and my favorite romantic couple, we had never seen anything like this before and it has not been matched since.
Love is in the air and on the small screen. Who is on your top 5 favorite romantic couples from science fiction and fantasy television shows?
