superdeluxe

It only works if it has a strong ensemble cast. For example, I don't think New Girl gets less funny if CeCe and Schmidt get together.

Terminal

I disagree. It never works. You put people together, and it becomes dull and monotonous.

superdeluxe

What did you dislike about the schmidt/cece pairing last season? Do you watch New Girl?

Terminal

Is New Girl the one with Zooey Deschanel? Never seen it. Based on all the shows I've seen in the past, IMO, it never works. It's usually a dead end.

superdeluxe

Okay, but It worked for me..and I'm guessing it worked for others that watch the show.

Navinabob

Suburgatory died for me last season about the time they did the surrogate mother plot line. Most of the other shows mentioned I still like (Modern Family, Office, New Girl) or never watched (Big Bang).

fujishig

This does not bode well for Parks and Rec (which to it's credit hasn't been mentioned in this thread, at least not that I saw).

albert_m

How I Met Your Mother is the show that really is terrible now. It was never going to be a classic, but had its moments early on.

The Office fell pretty far, but still has random moments. Definitely time for it to end though.

30 Rock totally depends on the episode.

Goat3001

It's not the coupling of characters that is the issue. It's the coupling of main characters that previously worked as single people.

Parks and Rec introduced Ben as Leslie's love interest. So it has worked so far. Ben was never truely his own character. As soon as he joined the show, you saw that him and Leslie would be together. Compare that to say, HIMYM where they took two characters that worked well as singles (Barney and Robin) and decided to put them together because they ran out of things to do with the individual characters. IMO, HIMYM failed the Barney character when the writer's decided they couldn't make Norah likable enough to become a major fixture on the show. He should have been with her from the start and done something else with Robin.

Also Parks and Rec has a big cast that all work well off each other. You can group any of them together and bring on a good story. Aside from Leslie, they've paired Ben with Chris, Tom, April and Andy and it's worked well in all those situations. The show doesn't need to revolve around Leslie and Ben.

Compare that to the Office where half the driving story for 3 seasons was the will they/won't they between Pam and Jim. Once they got together, their storylines became boring. They still did plenty of episodes that worked where they paired Jim with Michael or Dwight but those became few and far between once Jim and Pam's relationship took the next step.

whoopdido

Yeah if you watch the pilot episode, it's obvious that the waitress was supposed to be a main character. She seemed to have a fairly close relationship with George and Jerry. So glad they brought on Elaine. I couldn't imagine Seinfeld without her.

Also glad they changed actors for Morty Seinfeld. The first guy just didn't fit.

brayzie

I didn't like when Schmidt and Cece got together. The best part was when she actually found him appealing when he was taking charge in the kitchen. Schmidt is funny as a single guy. I can't see the "I go outside, grab the paper, and shake the neighbors hand," scene happening if he was with Cece. I mean it was funny when Cece was ashamed of Schmidt, but as a regular couple, not so much.

Trelach24

HIMYM is one of my favorite sitcoms ever and I gave up on it this year. I may have watched the first two episodes and then I deleted my season pass. I never really cared about the overall gimmick of the mother anyway so after it ends I'll probably just read up on what happened. In its heyday it was such a great show. I don't want my memory of the show to be tainted by the cartoon it has become.

ben12

Which is strange because their coupleness killed a lot of the funniness of the show when they focused on the drama of their relationship and them trying to have kids instead of jokes.