The art of the breakup.

I like the two generations of married Vorkosigans: Aral and Cordelia, and Miles and Ekaterin. And, ummm...I can't think of another example.

Heh. I was actually thinking of the exchange in A Civil Campaign where Kareen basically says what Seanan is here:

"I don't want to stop. ["Is that how you see marriage? As the end and abolition of yourself?"] It is for some people. Why else do all the stories end when the Count's daughter gets married? Hasn't that ever struck you as a bit sinister? I mean, have you ever read a folk tale where the Princess's mother gets to do anything but die young? I've never been able to figure out if that's supposed to be a warning or an instruction."

As to why a lot of media is reluctant to keep its couples together...well, I think too many recall that Moonlighting tanked after the leads hooked up, mostly because the writers had no idea how to write the couple. A combination of the writers not getting better at it, and people not realizing that the writing was the problem and blaming it on the relationship, has a lot of media creation refusing to take the plunge. (The only reason I know this is that I'm on TV Tropes, and I specifically did not link to it here.)

I thought about linking to TV Tropes. Decided it would be an impressive feat of cruelty and refrained.

Something I'm thinking about is, yeah, most writers don't really know how to write an ongoing relationship. Which makes for an interesting chicken-and-egg situation: they don't know how to write an ongoing relationship because, well, they don't have any* cultural referents for ongoing relationships, because nobody* writes ongoing relationships...


* - for versions of "any" and "nobody" which accept that there are individual exceptions, but that those exceptions don't represent the prevalent norm.

Remington Steele tanked for the same reason, yes.

Because writing relationships for TV is really difficult.

Comics? Not so much. Reed and Sue have been together forever and usually happy.

Jo and Tinya, too, before the rebootage starts messing things up.

Actually, the death of Remington Steele had much less to do with the writing of the relationship (although the introduction of Jack Scalia's character was a complete misfire) than it did with a number of external factors, not least the fiasco surrounding Brosnan's first chance at playing James Bond and the very odd and foreshortened structure of the last "season".

Unless I'm misremembering, the series finale ended by showing the central relationship moving forward at last, with both parties' eyes wide open. I counted that as an "upbeat" ending, if not a guaranteed happy-ever-after.

mostly because the writers had no idea how to write the couple.

That's the heart of it, I think. When the characters are dreamed up, their 'normal' relationship status is locked into their character as part of it. They're not people, they're archetypes. Changing the fundamental nature of the relationship changes the archetype, which means it's not going to attract the same audience if the characters have been fairly cardboard. Thus the unending will-they-won't-they series.

It's only when the characters have grown beyond their origins that the writing can start to be about the people instead. At least, for primary characters. Secondary characters can be jerked around depending on what the writer needs to be in place to make a joke work or a plotline run smoother.

Bujold also does it with Dag and Fawn in the Sharing Knife tetrology -- the first book handles all the 'starting a romance', to the point of ending with a wedding. The next three are about them as an intercultural couple trying to find out where they and a future family might be welcome.

And also occasionally killing monsters.

I adore that series.

Same here. I'm a big fan of partnerships between characters -- romantic or plantonic. Which is one reason this rant agrees with me. I don't mind UST, but the series doesn't have to end when the couple hooks up, as long as the writers realize how to bloody write for a couple. Plenty of drama, even interpersonal drama, that can be done without re-hashing the 'will they break up with me'?

And if the main point of the series is the killing of monsters*, then you're golden.

* Or solving paranormal crimes, or what have you.