Well, I think because that happened in Moonlighting because the show was bailing out of a mess, it's kind of become an urban legend to say that's always why you bring the battling leads together. But I don't think it is. Although I've barely watched any "Bones" so I can't comment on this particular one.

What bothers me about the Moonlighting "curse" is that it implies that there's no potential drama or interesting storylines for a happy couple. I wouldn't go so far as to blame the ever-decreasing marriage rate on the lack of television role models, but I don't think it's too far fetched to think it has some influence.

I have never been a Bones-Booth shipper, because they're an impossible couple and any sexual attraction between them is invisible to me. However, in some of the scenes where they have drinks after a case, they come across as wonderful friends.

That leads me to another rant, the one about how men and women can have a good working relationship without falling into bed with each other.

that's always why you bring the battling leads together

They were tsundere on Moonlighting, but often the curse is used to predict doom for shows where they weren't--Bones and Booth have their conflicts, but they're obviously devoted to each other, as are Castle and Beckett. The shows don't hinge on their antagonism in the least. I just don't get the journalistic preoccupation with it. Not at all.

Gotta say I love that Patrick Jayne is so messed up that you never have to worry about this stuff on Mentalist.

I don't either, ita. Ginger, I'm not sure why that is, either. Getting them together doesn't mean their conflict can't be interesting.Although I think Hope and Michael on Thirtysomething are more boring than their single friends, at least in the parts where the single friends are NOT talking about how awesome Hope and Michael are and how much they wish they could be like that.

TWO new-baby storylines going on at once, all through the next season? If I'd ever watched, I'd stop. Excruciating.

What do you mean by "call foul"?

I mean it's the "oh by the way these two had sex, but we're only going to let you know now" foul. It's not quite as bad as the X-Files version, but it still feels cheap to me. They didn't earn this from what they've shown.

I haven't watched Bones in ages but I heard about the finale from a friend.

I agree Moonlighting came to an end for reasons other than the two characters having sex, but it keeps getting repeated by journalists and producers as a reason for teevee relationships.

"And it allows us to keep them precisely who they’ve been for the past six years, and yet move them forward without getting into the stuff where you kind of go, “Eww, now they like each other; there’s no point in watching the show.” Nobody really wants that happy domesticity."

From the Ausiello bit linked above. I don't mind some happy domesticity. Where is this idea coming from that happy domesticity is boring or that the people who are H and D have lost their personalities or intelligence in the process?

I hope they get Paget Brewster back in CM. I feel like apologizing for hoping her pilot fails, but she's so good in the core BAU group.

Does anyone else remember reading the really good article in EW way back when (when they did good entertainment journalism and weren't a People mag clone) about how the actors banding together for the last season of Friends so pissed off producers all around Hollywood that, basically, there was a producers pinky-swear to never let it happen again. They would henceforth fire someone preemptively to scare the actors out of sticking together. (I think EWs editorial policy started to go downhill from that point on.)

So I think that's what happened with CM. I wish I were reading that all the actors stuck together and that they are all getting the same monetary deal. Good grief, for all that the producers were whining about Friends at the time, it's still a money making machine for all of them. Idiots.

I'm so relieved that AJ Cook is coming back. CM is now my favorite show. It took, what, 6 years for me to notice it existed!

AJ is coming back? YAY!